The CBI on Monday raided 13 locations, mostly in Jammu and Kashmir, linked to eight serving or retired IAS officers and other bureaucrats in connection with one of the biggest illegal arms-licence rackets in the country.
A CBI spokesperson said that around two lakh arms licences had been issued illegally from various districts of Jammu and Kashmir to people living outside the region, on the basis of forged documents and in exchange for bribes.
Officials said this was the biggest anti-graft operation in Jammu and Kashmir since it lost its special status on August 5 and, subsequently, its statehood.
The locations raided were in Srinagar, Jammu, Gurgaon and Noida, the CBI spokesperson said. Among them were locations linked to eight former deputy commissioners, of Kupwara, Baramulla, Shopian and Pulwama in the Valley and Udhampur, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Doda in Jammu.
The CBI did not reveal the names of the suspects but sources said that one of them was a 2007-batch IAS officer and another a 2010-batch IAS officer.
“After taking over the case, searches had earlier been conducted at 11 places, including (locations in) Srinagar, Udhampur and Jammu, which led to the recovery of incriminating documents relating to the issuance and renewal of arms licences, blank application forms submitted by various licensees, money transactions of gun dealers with licensees, blank NOCs (no-objection certificates) purportedly issued by district magistrates, and other documents,” he said.
The case had been handed over to the CBI on the basis of a recommendation from Rajasthan director-general of police O.P. Galhotra after the northwestern state’s anti-terror squad claimed to have busted a racket related to the matter.
The Rajasthan ATS had estimated that around 4.29 lakh arms licences had been issued over the past decade from various districts of militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir.
The CBI’s Chandigarh unit has registered the FIRs for alleged criminal misconduct and criminal conspiracy under the Ranbir Penal Code and Section 3/25 of the Arms Act, besides provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
