Three and a half months have gone by when on August 9, the day of Eid festival, Kishtwar plunged into the whirlpool of communal clashes. A gun factory in the heart of the town was looted by the unruly mob and 42 weapons viz. 12 bore guns were looted. 16 of these remain unrecovered. The premise that these weapons might have passed into the hands of the militants who are still active in the upper reaches is absurd. The militants especially the foreigners are equipped with most modern assault weapons like AKs and many other guns. They never would want to use 12 bore guns which are not meant for combat activity. Therefore the simple inference is that the unrecovered guns are still with the locals. The story that the police are unable to find any clue about the unrecovered guns too is flimsy and unsatisfactory. Those from whom some of the looted guns have been recovered are all locals. Naturally they must be in full knowledge who were the people who looted the factory because the loot must have taken place after some mutual consultations among the looters. They are not miscreants but criminals who have looted the weapons for using these against their adversaries. The police appear to be shunning its duty of intensifying the search, arresting the suspects and subjecting them to interrogation. If the local police have had no success in tracing the looters, let a super agency like IB, CBI etc. be assigned the duty to fulfill the job. It has to be noted that those who looted the weapons were also involved in stoking the flames of communal violence. Those who have retained the 16 untraced guns can bring havoc if God forbid another communal or ethnic clash takes place in volatile Kishtwar-Doda belt just because the external terrorists are sill prowling around.
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