Police probing the killing of senior crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey suspect that the weapon and bullets used in the murder might have been smuggled from Nepal by a middle man, who handed them over to one of the gunmen at Nainital in Uttarakhand.
"The 0.32 US-made revolver and 20 live rounds along with five empty cartridges had been seized from the arrested seven accused and we suspect they were brought from Nepal by a middle man, who handed them over to the gunman Rohee Joseph alias Satish Kalya," said a senior Crime Branch official.
On Sunday night, police arrested Kalya (34), Abhijeet Shinde (28), Arun Dake (27), Sachin Gaikwad (27), Anil Waghmode (35), Nilesh Shendge (34) and Mangesh Agawane (25) in connection with Dey's murder on June 11.
The 56-year-old Mid-Day reporter was gunned down at the behest of gangster Chhota Rajan, who paid Rs5 lakh to the accused, police have said.
A team of Crime Branch will soon visit Nainital where members of Rajan and another gangster, Bunty Pandey, who is currently lodged in Mumbai jail, were active, police said.
Police are not ruling out possibility that Pandey's gang members may have assisted Kalya, a Rajan aide, in procuring the revolver. Rajan's former aide D. K. Rao, questioned by the Crime Branch after the reporter's murder, was untraceable after the case was cracked, they said.
The statement of a guide of Raj Travels, who was with Dey during his trip to England, would also be recorded. The guide was expected to arrive in Mumbai in a few days, police said.
"The guide has seen some people whom Dey had met during his trip to England," said Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy.
While recording the guide's statement, he would also be shown the photographs of suspects, including mob boss Dawood Ibrahim's aide Iqbal Mirchi, who stays in Britain, police sources said.
"We want to know if Dey had met Mirchi," said a police officer on condition of anonymity. Dey was on a foreign trip alone for a fortnight beginning from April 20 during which he had visited England, Ireland and Switzerland.
"It is unusual for a single person to go on such a trip and we have reasons to believe that his foreign trip has relevance to the probe," the official added.
Police said Rajan had spoken to Kalya a number of times through VOIP because of which it was very difficult to trace the underworld don's exact location. "Dey had received a number of international calls at least five days before his murder but it is not yet clear as to from whom he had received these calls," Roy said.
Asked if these international calls were made by Rajan to Dey, Roy said: "I am not sure about it. Of the 3,000 emails and 250 drafts found in the two personal email accounts of the scribe, 15 to 20 mails appear to be important."
Roy said they were gathering circumstantial evidence and looking for reliable witnesses.