727 cartridges found in Powai lake

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) employees were shocked to discover cartridges in one of the cleaning nets while clearing up the Powai lake after the Ganapati festival. The workers who spotted the cartridges informed their superiors and an underwater search was carried out in the western region of the lake, which resulted in around 727 cartridges being recovered from the lake.

The cartridges found in the lake were of different sizes and used in various types of lethal and non-lethal fire arms. “As soon as we received information about cartridges being found in the lake, We intensified the search. Some unidentified person, fearing that he might get caught , could have dumped them in the lake,” said a senior police officer. “Though we don’t know yet how many are live, we have sent them to the ballistic division of the forensic science laboratory to be checked”, he added.

As the civic body had started beautification work in some of the areas, they were not covered with CCTVs. Also the existing cameras were non-functional. If these cameras were functional, they could have helped to catch the person who dumped the cartridges in the lake.