NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday conducted raids at the offices and residences of senior bureaucrats at nearly 40 locations in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with fraudulent issuance of gun licences.
Among those raided was senior IAS officer Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, who is Administrative Secretary of the Tribal Affairs Department in the Jammu and Kashmir administration. Apart from the bureaucrats, CBI also raided the premises of around 20 gun dealers in Jammu, Srinagar, Udhampur, Rajouri, Anantnag, Baramulla and Delhi. According to sources, the gun dealers’ role in the alleged racket was established during a scrutiny of documents. It is alleged that then district magistrates and additional district magistrates had issued illegal arms in connivance with the dealers. More than 2.78 lakh arms licences were issued to non-entitled persons in Jammu and Kashmir between 2012 and 2016.
The investigative agency had registered a case in 2019, alleging that deputy commissioners of various districts had issued licences illegally for monetary concessions. It was also alleged that people who got these licences were not residents of the districts from where they were issued the licences. The residence of Choudhary at Tulsi Bagh government quarters in Srinagar was searched by CBI sleuths. Choudhary had previously served as Deputy Commissioner of Udhampur, Reasi, Kathua Rajouri and Srinagar districts.
Choudhary took to Twitter to claim that CBI found nothing incriminating at his residence in the probe. He said issuing arms licence is no crime and stated that out of 4.49 lakh licences issued in J&K between 2012 and 2016, only 56,000 were issued from Reasi, Kathua and Udhampur during his tenure.
“Of the 56,000 licences issued in three districts between 2012 and 2016, only 1720 licences were issued during my tenure,” he said, adding that licences issued in these three districts during his tenure was lowest for any district.
The Rajasthan ATS had unearthed the gun licence racket in 2017. During investigation, J&K Police found that thousands of licences were issued by in J&K in a fraudulent manner. Senior IAS officers Rajiv Ranjan and Itrit Hussain Rafiqui were arrested in March, 2020, by CBI for issuing licences in improper manner.