As many as 24 live cartridges were seized from baggages of two male passengers at the airport in Pune district of Maharashtra on Thursday, a police official said.
Both of them have been detained, he said.
A total of 22 live cartridges were found in the baggage of a 58-year-old passenger, who was scheduled to fly to Bengaluru in a SpiceJet flight, Vimantal police station’s senior inspector Dilip Shinde said.
“After the detection, the passenger was handed over to the airport police. Our investigation has revealed that he has a valid license of a .32 caliber pistol,” he said.
The man told the police that since he was in a hurry, he forgot to remove the cartridges from the bag before heading to the airport, he said, adding that a probe was underway.
In another incident, two live cartridges of a .9 mm weapon were seized from the baggage of another 61-year-old passenger, who was slated to travel to New Delhi in an IndiGo flight, he said.
The passenger, hailing from Delhi, worked as a locomotive driver with the Railways, Shinde said.
“He claimed that he had come to Pune to visit his son, who works as an IT engineer here. He has also said that he does not have any valid gun license,” he said.
“We are questioning him about how the two cartridges came into his bag. He is also checking with his son and other family members about it,” Shinde said.
The two cartridges found in the bag of Delhi-bound passenger will be sent for ballistic analysis, and if they are found to be genuine and the passenger fails to produce a valid gun license, a case will be registered against him, the official said.
