Bizwoman stages firing, bomb blast at home in bid to secure gun licence

Bhubaneswar: In a bizarre turn of events, a woman entrepreneur allegedly orchestrated a firing and bomb blast at her residence in Bhubaneswar recently in a bid to create an impression regarding threat to her life so she could obtain a gun licence, police revealed following the arrest of three of her associates on Tuesday.Apparently, Ghunguru Misra (38) wanted to flaunt the firearm and was desperate to get hold of a licence, police said. She is reportedly on the run. Police identified the three arrested as Debasis Mohapatra (24), Santosh Mahakud (25) and Chandan Nayak (27), who is her driver and apparently has a criminal record.Police unravelled Misra’s conspiracy theory while investigating two previous alleged incidents of firing and explosion at her home in Bharatpur area.

Misra lodged two separate complaints — one on Sept 11 and the other on Oct 5— about alleged attacks on her house.As per her complaint, unknown miscreants hurled bombs at her residence on Sept 10 night and fired multiple rounds on the night of Oct 4. These incidents were captured on CCTV cameras at her home. Misra then had criticised the police, demanding protection and citing threats to her life while also seeking a gun licence.

However, during investigation, it was revealed that Misra had applied for a firearm licence months before the first incident was reported on Sept 10, and her application is under verification.Commissioner of police S Dev Datta Singh said the investigation uncovered Misra’s conspiracy when the arrested individuals confessed to being hired by her. “Misra’s aim was to fabricate a scenario of life-threatening danger to expedite the approval of her arms licence.

She perhaps wanted to flaunt dominance in her neighbourhood by obtaining an arms licence. She is currently evading arrest, and efforts are on to locate her,” Singh said.Police said her arms licence application will be rejected in the wake of her illegal action. Police have also accused Misra of causing unnecessary panic and disrupting the peace in her neighbourhood by staging these false attacks.An illegal firearm and a bullet were seized from the arrested persons, with some bullets used in the staged firing reportedly supplied by Misra herself, police sources said.