India’s Biggest Arms Licence Scam In J&K

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What has happened?

Several district magistrates in Jammu and Kashmir in collusion with arms dealers had issued illegal gun licences going back as far as 2012,
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Saturday as part of their probe into an arms licence racket.
Over 2.78 lakh illegal gun licences have been issued by district magistrates for money, the agency said, in what is believed to be India’s biggest arms licence scam.
In a statement, the CBI said they conducted searches at 40 locations including 20 gun houses in a case related to arms licence racket in Jammu and Kashmir.
The agency is yet to share details about the searches but confirmed that the exercise was being conducted in connection with a case registered in 2019 on the allegations that between 2012 and 2016,
The deputy commissioners of various Jammu and Kashmir districts had fraudulently and illegally issued bulk arms licences in lieu of monetary consideration.

Among those raided are two IAS officers Shahid Iqbal Choudhary and Neeraj Kumar.
Mr Choudhary, who is Secretary of Tribal Affairs, has served as district magistrate in six districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
He claimed that no incriminating material was found during searches by CBI at his residence but admitted there were irregularities in some cases.

The arms licence racket was first unearthed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Rajasthan Police in 2017 after they found criminals with licensed weapons issued by bureaucrats in Jammu and Kashmir.
The ATS had also found over 3,000 licences were given in the name of Army personnel based on fake documents.
The Rajasthan ATS had arrested over 50 people for their alleged involvement in the illegal issuance of arms licences.
It is alleged that then public servants in cahoots with other accused issued arms licences to non-residents of state in violation of rules and received illegal gratification.
Based on ATS findings, then Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra had handed over the matter to the CBI in 2018.
The CBI had in December 2019 carried out searches at over a dozen locations in Srinagar, Jammu, Gurgaon and Noida on the premises of the then district collectors and magistrates of J&K.
The searches were carried out in connection with a probe into 2 cases pertaining to the alleged issuance of around 2 lakh arms licences,
From different districts of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir by their collectors and magistrates.
It is alleged that arms licences were issued in lieu of illegal gratification.

Opponents accused the then Peoples’ Democratic Party-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir of trying to shield the accused under the garb of a vigilance probe.
The BJP welcomed CBI raids and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for acting against corrupt who were proliferating illegal arms across the country.
“These licences were issued during previous regimes. CBI should get to the bottom of it who all were given gun licences; who are these people in different parts of the country and Jammu and Kashmir. It should be exposed,” said BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur.
In March last year, the CBI arrested IAS officers Kumar Rajiv Ranjan and Itrat Rafiqui who had issued thousands of licences during their tenure as the District Magistrates of Kupwara.

Q) Which of the following is correct regarding Arms act?