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Over 400 fake arms licence recovered in Jammu’s Gadigarh
Police had received an input about a resident Gadigarh, who owns gun houses, storing forged gun licences in an under-construction building
Police on Thursday recovered fake arms licences in bulk from an under-construction house in Gadigarh.
“Around 435 gun licences, prima facie fake, recovered from an under-construction house in Gadigarh locality. We have registered a case under relevant sections of BNS and initiated a probe,” said a police officer.
Police had received an input about Tirath Singh of Gadigarh, who owns gun houses, storing forged gun licences in an under-construction building at Gadigarh.
A case was registered at the Satwari police station. “Based on this input, the raid was conducted in the presence of a magistrate at the building and a bag containing 435 gun licences along with some other documents was recovered,” an officer said.
Notably, a huge arms licence scam allegedly involving deputy magistrates in Jammu and Kashmir was unearthed by the anti-terrorism squad of Rajasthan in 2017. It was being probed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police before CBI was handed over the case by the then governor NN Vohra.
Arms licences in bulk were allegedly issued by the then deputy magistrates to non-residents on forged documents.
Between 2012 and 2016, deputy commissioners of various districts had fraudulently and illegally issued bulk arms licences in lieu of monetary consideration.
The Rajasthan ATS in 2017 had arrested over 50 people for their alleged involvement in the illegal issuance of arms licences. According to the ATS, over 3,000 permits were granted allegedly in the name of Army personnel.
Subsequently, CBI had registered two cases on the request of J&K Government and further notification from Government of India, and taken over the investigation of two FIRs registered Vigilance Organisation Kashmir (VOK) and Vigilance Organisation Jammu police stations on the allegations of bulk issuance of arms licences in the erstwhile state between 2012 and 2016.
It was alleged that more than 2.78 lakh arms licences were issued to the non-entitled persons. CBI also collected documents pertaining to the issuance of said armed licences allegedly spread over 22 districts.
