A BSF Commandant colluded with a District Magistrate and the owner of a gun shop to provide private arms licences to the jawans of the paramilitary force for a gratification of Rs 12,000 per licence. After unearthing the shocking wheeling and dealing, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked the three for criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and criminal misconduct. 

According to the CBI FIR, all the nine jawans who procured the licence were posted at the Frontier Headquarters, Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat. None of them belongs to Rajouri district from where the licences were issued.

The case was registered under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic records), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal, etc., with intent to commit forgery punishable under Section 467), 474 (having possession of document described in section 466 or 467, knowing it to be forged and intending to use it as genuine), Ranbir Panel Code and 5(1 )(d) read with 5(2) of Jammu & Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act, 2006 and Section 30 of Arms Act, 1959.

Those made accused in the FIR are Pramod Kumar Sharma, owner of the Nav Durga Gun House, Paloura Top, Jammu;  BSF Commandant Sukhwinder Singh, former District Magistrate (Rajouri) Faquir Chand Bhagat, and other unknown persons.

According to the CBI, the case was registered on a complaint of Additional Director-General BSF, KK Sharma, who alleged that PK Sharma, the owner of Nav Durga Gun House, Jammu, had charged Rs 12,000 per licence from BSF personnel for providing arms licences. The complainant had alleged that the owner of the gun shop in Jammu was ‘close’ to the BSF Commandant who  introduced him to the BSF personnel .  

In the FIR, the CBI has claimed that the BSF commandant arranged the meeting of gun shop owner PK Sharma with the jawans of the BSF and persuaded them to get private arms licences for Rs 12,000 each.

“The CBI has stated that the licences were issued on the basis of forged documents and the then District Magistrate (Rajouri) Faquir Chand Bhagat  approved them in violation of the rules and procedures and without due verification.