Many more officers under scanner, action likely soon
Cash, documents, gadgetries seized during searches
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 24: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today conducted raids at 11 locations across Jammu and Kashmir including residences of a serving IAS officer and two former JKAS officers, two of whom were earlier posted as Deputy Commissioners, in connection with fake gun license racket and recovered large quantity of cash, documents, important gadgetries etc.
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Apart from three serving and retired officers, rest of the persons whose premises were raided by the Enforcement Directorate today were businessmen, mostly the gun dealers.
Official sources told the Excelsior that 11 teams of the Enforcement Directorate drawn from New Delhi, Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir started simultaneous raids this morning, which lasted till this evening.
“Rs 93.5 lakh cash was recovered from the house of Mukesh Bhargava Rs. 65 lakh from Devi Dayal Khajuria and 1.7 kg gold from Madan Bhargava during the raids,” sources said. Recoveries have also been made from other houses.
Searches were conducted at residential premises of serving and retired officers/officials including Rajeev Ranjan, IAS (former DC Kupwara), Itrat Hussain, JKAS (former DC Kupwara), Ravinder Kumar Bhatt, JKAS (former ADC Kupwara who has already been dismissed from services), Tariq Ather and Gajan Singh, both former Judicial Clerks who worked at Arms Section at DC Office Kupwara.
Residential premises of six arms dealers of J&K including Amarnath Bhargava (owner of Varun Armoury), his brother Mukesh Bhargava/ Madan Mohan Bhargava (Bhargava Gun House), Balwant Singh/ Surjeet Singh (Dashmesh Armoury), Mohinder Kotwal (Mohinder Kotwal Arms and Ammunition), Manohar Singh (Swaran Arms and ammunition) and Devi Dayal Khajuria/ Dushyant Khajuria (Khajuria Arms), were also searched.
“Many incriminating documents revealing transactions between arms dealers/brokers with Government officials have been seized during the raids,” sources said.
They revealed that more senior bureaucrats of J&K are involved in criminal practices of issuance of arms license in lieu of monetary considerations.
“The officers and officials of the districts in connivance with private person(s) and others have fraudulently and illegally issued the gun licenses,” sources said, adding information gathered by the Enforcement Directorate revealed that a well knit nexus was being run by the arms dealers/ independent brokers/ agents and Judicial clerks, Deputy Commissioners and Additional Deputy Commissioners of various districts and they had issued arms licenses illegally by flouting the norms, procedure and rules governing the subject in lieu of monetary considerations by abuse of their official position as public servants.
“Every one beginning from agents to arms dealers had their share in this monetary consideration right from the broker/arms dealers to judicial clerks to DC/ADC of various districts,” sources said.
They added that the Enforcement Directorate has registered the case in arms license matter in 2020 and since then several IAS/ JKAS officers and other Government officials have been summoned and investigated.
Though the CBI is already investigating the case, the Enforcement Directorate has to unravel money laundering and various other aspects of the matter.
“Many more Government officers/officials in this and other cases are under scanner of the Enforcement Directorate and action will be taken against them also shortly,” sources said.
Earlier, the CBI had conducted extensive raids in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with cases of alleged issuing of fake firearms licenses to ineligible people. The premier probe agency had said that ‘bulk issuance of arms licenses’ in Jammu and Kashmir between 2012 and 2016 saw over 2.78 lakh arms licenses issued to ‘non-entitled persons’.
Multiple probes carried out through the years have indicated the role of certain ammunition dealers who ‘in connivance with public servants had allegedly issued such illegal arms licenses’.
An Advisor of the Lieutenant Governor who earlier was an IAS officer was a few months ago sacked after his name is reported to have surfaced in the “fake” gun license scam that is being investigated by the CBI.
The scam pertains to alleged issuance of more than 2.78 lakh arms (gun) licenses to non-entitled persons between 2013 to 2016. CBI has also collected documents about the issuance of such arms licenses in over 22 districts of the erstwhile State of J&K. Several IAS and JKAS officers earlier posted as Deputy Commissioners and other officials were reportedly involved in the scam.
The Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and Madhya Pradesh Police had initially unearthed the scam in 2017 and had arrested over 50 people, including an IAS officer, for their alleged involvement in the illegal issuance of arms licenses. According to Rajasthan ATS, over 3,000 licenses were granted allegedly in the name of Army personnel.
The CBI had recently raided in Jammu and Srinagar houses of many serving and retired bureaucrats in connection with the scam.
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