JAMMU, March 24: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched multiple raids in Jammu and Kashmir’s Trikuta area in connection with the ongoing investigation into the Valley’s arms license racket. It is pertinent to mention that the Central Bureau of Investigation has already taken up the probe into unlicensed arms and weapons owners and dealers at the behest of the Centre, and now the ED has joined hands with the premier investigation agency.
Top sources confirmed that two dealers who deal with Jammu and Kashmir’s arms licensing have been nabbed by the agency and taken into custody for further questioning. “Some bureaucrats are under the scanner in Jammu in too,” they added.
Earlier, the CBI conducted extensive raids in Jammu and Kashmir in relation to cases of alleged granting of firearms licenses to ineligible people. The premier probe agency said that ‘bulk issuance of arms licenses’ in Jammu and Kashmir between 2012 and 2016 witnessed over 2.78 lakh arms licenses issued to ‘non-entitled persons’. Multiple probes carried out through the years have indicated the role of certain ammunition dealers who ‘in connivance with public servants had allegedly issued such illegal arms licenses’.
