Five men from Jammu and Kashmir, working with a security agency based in Maharashtra that assists in filling cash in bank ATMs, were arrested by the Kerala police on August 1, Wednesday, for possessing fake gun licences. The five men, identified as Shoukat Ali, Shukur Ahamed, Gulsman, Mushtaq Hussain and Mohammed Javed, had been working in Kerala for the past six months after being recruited by the agency in Maharashtra. They were arrested by Karamana police, from their place of residence in Neeramankara of Thiruvananthapuram. Police also recovered five guns and 25 rounds of ammunition from them.

They gave statements to police that the documents were given to them by the recruiting agency in Maharashtra. Police informed that further investigation will be conducted on the agency. The police said they are aged between 20 to 25 years and hail from Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. They have been living in Kerala for the last six months. Police said that they had received information from Kerala-based security guards on security personnel from other states keeping guns without proper licenses. They were asked to produce the documents for the guns, but the papers were fake. Police consulted the district administration of Rajouri in J&K to scrutinise the licenses these men produced. It was learnt that either the licenses were fake or outdated.

Police said that the arrested have no past criminal records. Police said that they would send the documents submitted by the arrested men to the district administration of Rajouri for further detailed enquiry, which may reveal more details. As per the statements by the accused, they did not know the licenses were fake. They said that guns and documents were provided by the agency. All of them will be produced before a court in Kerala on Thursday, police said.