Transfer licence racket case to CBI: ATS to govt

The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of Rajasthan police has urged the state government to hand over the licence racket case to the CBI.

So far, the ATS arrested 40 people, seized 55 weapons and 1,181 fake arms licences in connection with the case that was uncovered in September last year. The fake licences were all made from Jammu and Kashmir’s districts Kathua, Kupwara, Jammu, etc.

“We want the CBI to take the case as the racket involves four states and there appears to be involvement of public servants as well,” said Biju George Joseph, inspector general (ATS).

According to the IG, the main conspirator in the racket was Zuber Khan (27) whose family has a gun shop in Ajmer.

“He would charge money from people for getting their arms licences made. Initially, the licences were obtained using forged documents such as fake address proof of J&K but later he started forging the licences themselves. We believe the officers of J&K are complicit in this as the verification of applicants was not done in a lot of cases,” said Joseph.

He said Zuber worked in tandem with Vishal Ahuja of Punjab, Mohammad Zafar of Madhya Pradesh, and Rahul Grover, Sunil Sharma and Deepak Gulati of J&K.

Among the arrested, these six were the main conspirators while the remaining were beneficiaries of the racket, having obtained licences through their help.

The conspirators in J&K allegedly liaised with the officers there and helped the applicants in obtaining the licences, Joseph said.

Zafar was a relative of Zuber and had a gun shop in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. Most of the weapons bought by the beneficiaries of the racket were from the shops of Zafar and Zuber.

Zuber’s father, Usman, is also one of the key accused and is absconding. Upon raiding Zuber’s house, the ATS found equipments used for forgery such as seals, stamps, fake pro forma, etc.

The beneficiaries of the racket include wealthy businessmen as well. “One person in Udaipur who obtained a fake licence and a weapon through this racket is also accused of murder that was committed with the same weapon,” the police officer said.

The ATS initially took the case as it suspected that an arms licence racket of this magnitude was likely to have a terror angle but nothing of the sort emerged, he said.