A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

New Delhi : President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on June 22 received an unusual package –– an indigenously made crude pistol and an empty cartridge –– with a request from an “inventor” to inspect his creation.

Would the president, an eminent scientist, please inspect the pistol that had been created using a “new technology,” requested Mahesh Sav of Mujaheedpur in Patna district of Bihar and asked for an appointment to discuss the device, police said.

The Bihar Police was immediately informed about the sender and by June 22 evening, Sav, 40, was arrested from his native Mujaheedpur village. Police officials said he was apparently mentally unstable.

The package did not reach Kalam as all parcels received at Rashtrapati Bhavan are put through X-ray machines before they ared and sent to him.

Security personnel spotted a pistol shaped image on their computer monitor and immediately summoned the bomb disposal squad from the Chanakyapuri police station, less than one kilometer from the presidential palace.

After inspection, the parcel wrapped in brown paper wasd at the police station and was found to contain a crude pistol and an empty cartridge, a Rashtrapati Bhavan official said. The parcel was detected at around 10 a.m. when Kalam was in the building.

A year and a half ago, the presidential palace had received live cartridges by mail, again from Bihar. In 2002, Bihar Police had arrested a youth named T. Chandrasekhar for sending two live cartridges to the president. Chandrasekhar, an unemployed graduate, told police he had sent the cartridges to Kalam as a “gift.”