‘Extend gun licenses probe upto 2018’
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 24: Seeking the extension of ongoing CBI probe into arms licenses scam upto the year 2018, a strong contingent of NPP activists led by party chairman Harsh Dev Singh held a protest demonstration at CBI office in Jammu today.
Raising slogans against the Govt for shielding corrupt officers and politicians involved in the said scam after 2016, the protestors submitted a memorandum to Director CBI through the Regional Office Jammu.
Lauding the ongoing CBI probe into the indiscriminate issuance of arms licenses issued by District Magistrates in the state of J&K, Harsh Dev Singh said that the said probe must extend to all such licenses issued upto December 31, 2018. He argued that the probe would lose its meaning and relevance if it was confined to issuance of such licenses between January 2012 and Dec 2016. Has the Govt granted immunity to those who issued such licenses prior to 2012 and after 2016, questioned Singh. Claiming that maximum gun licenses had been issued during 2016-18 for extraneous considerations by throwing all norms to winds, Singh said that exclusion of the said period from the enquiry schedule would render the entire exercise futile.
He said between 2016 and 2017, several thousands of arms licenses had been issued in District Udhampur alone in brazen circumvention of stipulated criteria and norms, without police verifications and without satisfying the procedural requirements thereby jeopardizing the security of state and the nation.
Lamenting that with J&K already having earned the most dubious notoriety in the past of being the second most corrupt state in the country as per the reckoning of transparency International, the arms licenses scandal involving several high ups had fully exposed it and surely catapulted it as the most corrupt state. He said that involvement of bigwigs in the arms racket had completely busted the myths of good governance and exposed the burgeoning culture of corruption at top levels of administration.
He said there could no justification in allowing immunity to those erring officers and District Magistrates who had issued fake licenses after 2016. He said that it was not merely a case of corruption at top levels but the very security of state and the nation had been threatened.
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