Brother of IAS officer held in fake arms licence case

JAIPUR: Ten months after busting a racket involved in supplying fake arms licence on backdate from Jammu and Kashmir, the Rajasthan ATS on Tuesday have arrested the elder brother of Jammu and Kashmir cadre IAS official.

Sleuths of ATS said that since the IAS officer was the licencing authority, while the licence was made by the gang busted by Rajasthan ATS, his role is also being probed.

Making its 52nd arrest after busting the gang on September 11, 2017, the ATS have arrested Kumar Jyoti Ranjan (46) from Gurgaon late on Monday evening for allegedly facilitating the gang members in getting back date arms licences.

While the gang was busted, the ATS so far seized 67 illegal arms and nearly 1,188 fake licences in this case.

“The gang got the backdate arms license to the beneficiaries allegedly through Kumar Jyoti Ranjan. It is also been found that the accused got the licenses through Kumar Rajeev Ranjan, the IAS officer posted in Jammu and Kashmir. We have already served notices to the IAS officer,” said Umesh Mishra, additional director general, ATS and SOG told TOI on Tuesday.

ATS sources added that the IAS officer was licensing authority while the licenses were made and supplied to various beneficiaries in Rajasthan on backdate.

According to the sources in the ATS the accused IAS officer has also been questioned by the team of ATS once.

“Certainly, the role of IAS officer is also been probed after the arrest done by our team,” Mishra added.

On September 11, 2017 ATS had busted an inter-state gang involved in supplying arms and its licenses including arrest of its kingpin from

Ajmer

.

“It is been found in the investigation that the arrested accused has also got hefty sum of money from the gang members in lieu of getting the licenses issued,” Mishra added.

The gang used to take Rs 3 lakh to 10 lakh from people seeking licences.

SOG officials said that the officials of Jammu and Kashmir were already on their radar since the licensing racket was busted.