Over 3,000 gun licences purportedly issued in army personnel name during J&K posting under ATS lens

Jaipur: Over 3,000 gun licenses issued in the purported name of army personnel during their stint in Jammu and Kashmir are under the scanner of Rajasthan's Anti-Terror Squad(ATS) which has asked the army to verify the names following suspected involvement of a gang to procure them illegally, police officials said on Tuesday.

The case dates back to November last year when the Rajasthan police's ATS carried out an operation codenamed "Jubaida" and arrested 52 people so far for their alleged involvement in getting gun licenses issued from various districts of J and K under suspicious circumstances. The licenses included 3,367 in the purported name of army personnel, the officials said.

After unravelling the entire conspiracy, the officials of the ATS found that such licenses were issued by the Deputy Commissioners of the districts over the past one decade and no records were allegedly maintained for the same, they said.

Letters were written in this connection to the Army, Indian Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, seven para-military forces including the Border Security Force(BSF) and the Central Reserve Police Force(CRPF), National Cadet Corps(NCC), Railway Protection Force(RPF) and National Disaster Response Force(NDRF).

While majority of them had replied , a comprehensive response from the army was still awaited notwithstanding the reminders, the officials said.