CBI raids 12 places in J&K in gun license racket, KVIC fraud
Srinagar :Slueths of Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) have conducted wide scale raids at a dozen places including in Srinagar, Udhampur, Jammu and Kathua in connection with fake arms license racket and frauds in Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).
Officials said that the raids were part of nationwide crackdown in connection with corruption, criminal misconduct and fake gun license racket across 110 locations in 19 States/Union Territories including Jammu and Kashmir.
“Documentspertaining to gun licenses racket were seized from some of the gun houses in Srinagar, Udhampur and Jammu during the raids, which concluded by late this evening,” a report by Excelsior said .
Rajasthan Police had detected large number of fake gun licenses in their State issued from different districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Jammu and Kashmir Government had handed over the fake arms license racket initially to the Vigilance Organization (now Anti-Corruption Bureau) and later to the CBI in view of reported involvement of some senior Government officers including in the rank of IAS and KAS officers.
The CBI teams also conducted searches in Kathua district in connection with a case registered against the then Assistant Development Officer (Khadi), KVIC, Jammu and the then Accountant, KVIC Jammu, the official statement said.
It added that the accused during the period from 2010-11 to 2015-16 entered into a conspiracy with Chairperson and Secretary of a private craft society based at Mankey Talab, Kathua and cheated the Government to the tune of Rs 17.73 lakh approximately.
Reports said that a number of non-State subjects have also been issued gun licenses from five to six districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
Over 50 people including the brother of an IAS officer have been arrested in the case so far in Rajasthan, where the racket was first detected, as majority of these arms licenses were given to people who did not belong to Jammu and Kashmir, on the basis of forged documents, sources said.
According to sources, 1,32,321 of the 1,43,013 gun licenses in Jammu region’s Doda, Ramban and Udhampur districts were issued to those residing outside the State in the past.
Nearly six districts of Jammu and Kashmir including four in Jammu region and two in Kashmir division were reportedly under radar of the CBI in connection with issuance of fake gun licenses including many of them to non State subjects.
The operation was spread across Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Pune, Jaipur, Goa, Raipur, Hyderabad, Madurai, Kolkata, Rourkela, Ranchi, Bokaro, Lucknow, Kanpur and other locations in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar.
KV Online
