THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Crime Branch will inspect all rifles of the Special Armed Police on Monday. The inspection will be carried out under ADGP (Crimes) Tomin Thachankary. He also directed all the commandants to return the 660 Insas rifles within two days. The Crime Branch decided to inspect the rifles after a CAG report said 25 rifles were missing.
Thachankary has already constituted a special team under Thiruvananthapuram unit DySP Anilkumar to probe the charges. The rifles, distributed to various armed battalions, would be brought back to the police headquarters for verification of stocks.
“We have directed all the battalions to surrender the rifles for verification on Monday,” Thachankary told reporters. The CAG report had stated 12,061 live cartridges were found missing in a joint verification in the Bell-of-Arms of SAPB, along with the Assistant Commandant. There was a shortage of 250 9-mm Drill Cartridges, which was “covered up” with dummy cartridges, the report on General and Social Sector for the fiscal ending March 31, 2018, had said.