J&K arms licence racket under lens again
JAMMU: The Kerala Police’s arrest of 24 men, all from Rajouri district of Jammu & Kashmir, for carrying fake arms licences has once again focused attention on a large arms licence racket that is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the licences were issued by the deputy magistrates accused of issuing hundreds of thousands of permits to people outside J&K, usually on the basis of fake documents, and in exchange for money.
The 24 arrested, 19 in Kochi and five in Trivandrum, all work as security guards for various security agencies, and all were on ATM duty.
Deputy commissioner of police, law and order, Trivandrum, Vaibhav Saxena said: “A week ago, five men were held in Thiruvananthapuram for carrying invalid arms licences; 19 others, who also hailed from Rajouri, have been arrested in Kochi after we gave a list to the Kochi police commissioner. Their licences were also found to be fake. We have got a report from Rajouri ADC which says that these licenses do not exist in their records/data base.”
The fake licences, the police officer said, were issued by a Rajouri man, who also sold them guns. “He was the one who gave a fake licence to these men for ₹6000 per license. He had also charged ₹13000-14,000 for single barrel and double barrel guns,” said the DCP, who added that this person’s identity can’t be divulged “at this stage.”
None of the men have a criminal record, the officer said. “It seems to be a recruitment scam. To get the jobs , these men obtained licences.”
The men were all hired by a private security agency SISCO. The DCP said SISCO actually had outsourced the human resource part to some other agency. He said that while the banks and the security firm have to check, the primary responsibility is that of the licence holders who have to inform local law enforcement authorities that they had just moved into the area, and carried arms licences. It is understandable that the guards did not do this.
Out of the five men arrested in Trivandrum, four are under judicial custody and one under police custody. They have been arrested under Arms Act and for forgery of documents.
The DCP, law and order, Kochi, Aishwarya Dongre, said, “We have arrested 19 men in Kochi and they are also from Rajouri. They also carried fake arms licences. We have seized their weapons and a probe is on.”
“During investigation, we found that a Maharashtra-based agency recruited people from highly- sensitive areas without checking their antecedents...have shared some of the seized documents with central agencies,” said a police officer requesting anonymity.
“A police team has been sent to Rajouri,” Dongre said.
Rajouri district police chief, SSP Sheema Nabi Qasba said she doesn’t have “in depth knowledge of the case because, primarily Kerala police is investigating it”
Rajouri district commissioner Rajesh Kumar Shawan didn’t respond to repeated calls and messages seeking comment.
The Kerala police acted on the basis of a tip off by central agencies. On July 24, CBI conducted searches in multiple locations in Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi in connection with investigation in the illegal arms licence case.