Over 10,000 arms licence files missing in Kanpur

KANPUR: The special investigation team (SIT), probing the issuance of 193 fake arms licences in 2019, has found that over 10,000 files related to arms licences issued in Kanpur were missing from district arms office.

The SIT, headed by IPS officer Dev Ranjan Varma, has completed its inquiry and would submit a report to the state government in first week of May, said sources privy to the matter.

The missing files include those related to arms licences issued to gangster Vikas Dubey, who was killed in 2020 after he ambushed and murdered eight policemen in Bikru here.

The SIT is likely to charge about a dozen officials and collectorate employees in the case, the sources said. The fake arms licence scandal was unearthed in 2019 after it emerged that clerks in the arms office had issued 193 fakes licences to people charging them between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh -- the rates were dependent on the bore of the weapon.

The clerks had allegedly copied the signature of the district magistrate and additional district magistrate and converted them into digital signatures, which they used on the arms licences.

After HT exposed the scandal, a police investigation was ordered.

Several people, including clerks and their agents, were investigated on the basis of the FIR that was lodged after a month of the HT expose.

Then city magistrate Ravi Srivastava, who held the charge of the arms department, was shifted from Kanpur.

During police investigation, it was initially found that 4,000 files related to arms licences were missing. This alarmed the authorities and then district magistrate Alok Tiwari recommended an investigation by an SIT in 2021.

According to SIT, the investigation has found that of the about 40,000 arms licences issued in Kanpur, files of 10,000 licences were missing. Also, due process was not followed in issuing all the licences, the officials said. SIT head Dev Ranjan Varma, who met district magistrate Neha Sharma over this issue, said the inquiry has been completed.

More than 10000 files were found to be missing. The report would be submitted to the state government in the first week of May and the government would decide the future course of action, he said.