Fired-up, man sends pistol to Kalam

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">NEW DELHI/PATNA: An alarm was caused in the security establishment on Tuesday after a parcel containing a pistol and a cartridge addressed to President A P J Abdul Kalam was received at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Within hours, police in Patna arrested the sender Mahesh Sav, who had apparently sent the pistol as a "sample" of the weapon purportedly developed by him.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The packet was brought by the Presidential House postman at around 9.30 am, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rashtrapati Bhawan, S B S Tyagi said.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">When the parcel, sent from Patna, was put through X-ray machine as per the security drill, it showed a pistol and a cartridge, he said.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The space at the place of trigger was filled with some material giving rise to suspicion that it could be some explosive.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad was immediately called in and the parcel was handed over to local police for examination, Tyagi said.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The parcel carried the sender''s name and address as ''Mahesh Sav, Village Mujahidpur, PO Box Pirsawa, Patna'' written in Hindi. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Next page: </span><a href="/articleshow/msid-750178,curpg-2.cms">What was the man’s real intention?</a><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">When opened, the parcel contained a letter in which the sender claimed that the enclosed pistol was developed by him locally and that he wanted an appointment with the President to show the weapon to him, sources said.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">"The letter indicates that the pistol had been sent as a sample to the President," they said. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Within hours of delivery of the packet, police in Patna nabbed 40-year-old Sav in Mujahidpur village.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Sav claimed during interrogation that he had sent a "toy" pistol to the President, Superintendent of Police (Patna Rural) Gangeshwar Prasad Sinha said. He also furnished the parcel receipt to the police. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">"The man appears to be of unsound mind," Sinha said, adding Sav did not have any criminal antecedent.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The man, who is married and has children, was being interrogated at Pandarak police station. His father Jagunandan Sav, a farmer, too was summoned for questioning. </span></div> </div>