In a major breakthrough, the Delhi Police has arrested India's biggest arms supplier Sheikh Salim alias 'Salim Pistol' from Nepal, said officials on Saturday.
Salim was nabbed by Delhi Police's Special Cell in a joint operation with security agencies and local authorities after he was tracked down in Nepal.
Security agencies said that Salim, a resident of Delhi's Seelampuri, was involved in the smuggling of weapons from Pakistan to India. He also had links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company.
The agencies are now investigating about his links with ISI and the D-Company.
They believe Salim was involved in providing weapons to gangsters like Lawrence Bishnoi and Hashim Baba. He also had mentored one of the accused involved in the killing of popular singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu alias Sidhu Moosewala. It is suspected that he was also involved in the killing Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddiqui.
Salim was also caught by the Delhi Police in 2018, but he somehow managed to escape. Since then, Salim has been on the run from security agencies.
Salim, who dropped out of school after class eight due to financial difficulties, has five brothers. He got married in 1992 and has two children - one son and a daughter.
In April 2000, Salim was involved in a car theft. He, along with his partner Mukesh Gupta alias Kaka, was involved in stealing a car from Chandni Chowk. He was arrested on May 25, 2000, for this and a case was registered against him under sections 379, 411 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In 2011, Salim, who briefly worked as a driver, was also involved in an armed robbery in Delhi's Jafrabad and looting Rs 20 lakh. For this, he was arrested on September 18, 2013, and sent to judicial custody after a first information report (FIR) was lodged against him under sections 395 and 397 of the IPC.
