J&K: CBI raids bureaucrats houses for fake gun licences

The sleuths of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday carried raids across Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi-NCR in an alleged gun-licence scam case during which residence of several former and current bureaucrats were searched.

Sources told DH that residence of three former deputy commissioners (DCs)— Itrat Hussain Rafique, Jehangir Mir and Farooq Khan— were raided by the CBI in Srinagar.

“The CBI sleuths carried through searches of the residences of these DCs, who have all retired in the recent years. Some vital documents pertaining to issuing fake gun licences were recovered during the raids,” they revealed.

Sources said that simultaneous aids were carried at the residences of three incumbent IAS officers in Jammu in the same case.

While two IAS officers, whose residences were searched were identified as Yasha Mudgal and Rajiv Ranjan, the identity of the third couldn’t be established immediately.

Reports said that similar raids were carried out in Delhi and NCR areas on Monday.

The Jammu and Kashmir government had last year recommended a CBI probe into the gun license racket after names of public officials, especially some IAS officers, surfaced during investigations carried out by Rajasthan police's Anti-Terror Squad (ATS).

The unholy nexus between bureaucrats-middlemen-arms dealers was unraveled by the Rajasthan police's ATS in 2017.

The probe agency is investigating alleged irregularities in the grant of over two lakh arms licenses in different districts of Jammu and Kashmir.

After the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 was abolished, the CBI can register cases against corrupt government officials without any prior permission from the Union Territory (UT) administration.

Earlier, also the CBI could register cases in erstwhile state of J&K, but with a rider that the investigating agency had to take consent from the then state government for doing so.

The rider was removed with applicability of Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019, which was passed by the Parliament on August 5.

The CBI already has offices in Jammu and Srinagar and has investigated some high-profile cases in the erstwhile state in the last two decades.

Sources told DH that the existing offices of the CBI in J&K are being strengthened in order to take up corruption cases.

“In the coming months, the CBI is expected to crack its whip on corrupt officials in J&K,” they said.

Recently, in order to ensure stringent implementation of anti-corruption norms in the UT of J&K, the Central government issued significant guidelines to the CBI and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in which timeline has been fixed for decision of the case while bribe givers will also be made accused unless they come out themselves with compelling circumstances within a week to justify reasons for paying corruption to the officers.

The new guidelines have been implemented with immediate effect by all the anti-graft bodies including CBI and ACB.