Notices pasted outside gun houses in Tarn Taran

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 3

The Tarn Taran police have found discrepancies in the record of four gun houses after busting a fake arms licence racket around 10 days ago. While two of the gun houses were cooperating, the police on Thursday pasted notices outside the two gun houses which were not cooperating with the police in investigation.

On record, the police have found around 15 fake armed licences and suspect that the number can well be over 200.

Tarn Taran SSP Dhruman Nimbale said as the gun houses were not cooperating with the police, they pasted notices outside the gun houses asking them to appear before the police for investigation in the case. They had fled after locking their houses and gun houses.

The two prime suspects in the racket, Karwinder Singh and Manjinder Singh, alias Mani, were yet to be arrested and raids were on to nab them, said the police. Karwinder was president of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office Employees’ Union.

Karwinder was booked by Punjab Police under a similar offence six years ago. He was reportedly acquitted in that case. Mani works in a photocopy shop in the DC office.

A fresh case under the Arms Act had been registered by the city police on specific input that he, in connivance with Mani, a resident of Pandori Gola village, had prepared over 200 fake arms licences on the basis of fake documents in the past few years. A preliminary probe by the local police claimed that the accused, Cheema and Mani, used to take from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 for making an arms licence.

Cheema was booked by the police around six years ago under a similar offence. Then deputy commissioner Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal had marked a probe to then Additional Deputy Commissioner Bakhtawar Singh who had found gross irregularities in the functioning of the Arms Branch of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office. It was found that the arms licence branch had issued a fake arms licence to Jaspal Singh of Bhikhiwind. The clerk dealing with the work had taken Rs 30,000 for issuing the licence.

After the issue was highlighted, a ‘fire’ incident was reported in the Arms Branch in which official records were burnt. An inquiry was also conducted to ascertain the reason behind the fire incident. Karwinder Singh Cheema, an employee of the DC office, was also working in the Arms Branch at that time.

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