Jammu and Kashmir has emerged as the second State in the country after U.P. which has issued maximum number of gun licenses to the people of the State. How come that lakhs of licenses were issued by the State authorities after the onset of militancy in 1980 remains an intriguing question. The racket of issuing licenses on mass scale taking into view the size of its population creates a number of doubts in the mind of readers. There was a time in the State when obtaining a gun license was much more difficult than obtaining a State Subject certificate.
Interestingly, the subject of unbridled issuance of gun licenses came to light not in Kashmir but far away in Jaipur when the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) tumbled on evidence to show that fake licenses issued from Kashmir had proliferated in procuring guns. Consequently it lodged an FIR and also conducted investigation that led the Rajasthan police to various towns like Udaipur, Alwar etc. It took up the matter with the State Government also. Besides ATS working on the solution of the riddle of who were involved in this racket of sorts, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also came to know on its own about the possibility of fake certificates being issued from J&K sources. Now the case for conducting full inquiry into the phenomenon became strong and the authorities took it seriously owing to the fact that there has been widespread militancy in J&K after 1980.
We have learnt that a strong and well-knit racket is working behind the issuance of large number of fake licenses and thus jeopardizing the already tense situation in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The figures suggested that with a population of 1.25 crore, now for every 33 persons, there is a gun license in Jammu and Kashmir. This sounds horrible. In simpler words almost one third of the entire population of the State can be said to have been militarized. Is there such a threat to life that people need to take gun licenses under self defence pretext?
It is now an established fact that most of the fake licenses that surfaced during fake gun license probe at Udaipur in Rajasthan by the ATS had come from the States like Jammu and Kashmir and Nagaland. As such we may not say that the fake license issuing activity in Jammu and Kashmir is exclusively the handmade of militants and their supporters. It is something beyond that. It is a racket and functioning of larger scale than just Jammu and Kashmir though it is active in the State also.
A single gun license is reported to fetch anything between 4 and 5 lakh of rupees. Those involved must be making a good amount out of this clandestine business. It is regrettable that some police officials and state functionaries are also alleged to be involved in this clandestine and anti-national activity be it UP or J&K or Nagaland and other states.
We are happy that the Rajasthan police and the CBI both have lodged FIRs and thus initiated a probe into the racket officially. This could be the tip of the iceberg and once the police do good deal of in depth probing more scandalous things could come to surface. We will appreciate rapid prosecution of the convicted persons so that it serves a deterrent to other who might be mulling for becoming part of this national level racket.
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