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Punjab's Top Guns get top guns
for a song
WSN
Network
Chandigarh: In a
rather disturbing news, the Chandigarh edition of the Indian Express
last week brought out how Chinese .32 bore revolvers that costs over
Rs 2 lakh each would be made available to bureaucrats and police
officers for just Rs 25,000 for private possession. Or a 7.62 MM
Mouser Pistol that costs over Rs 3 lakh for less than one-fifth the
price?
Punjab is
becoming the place for you if you want foreign-made weapons at
almost a fraction of the market price. Data obtained from the Punjab
Home Department in response to an RTI application showed that since
October 2003, the Home Department has allotted 274 weapons recovered
from terrorists or criminals. All these weapons were allotted when
the Congress government led by Capt Amarinder Singh was ruling the
state and 80 per cent of these went to politicians, police officers
and bureaucrats.
The “secret”
notification pertaining to the sale/allotment of confiscated/seized
weapons issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on October 16,
2001, clearly says that only those persons who face grave threat to
their lives are eligible for allotment of such weapons.
However, many
bureaucrats and politicians who served in the Amarinder Singh
government were among the chosen few. A large number of sarpanches
owing allegiance to the Congress were also on the list.
If former Punjab
Chief Secretary Rajan Kashyap, who is the state Chief Information
Commissioner now, got a .32 bore revolver on November 27, 2003, his
son Anurag Kashyap too got a similar weapon on the same day.
However, Kashyap Jr had to shell out an extra Rs 10,000 for the
weapon.
Also, sons and
daughters of some bureaucrats too managed to get weapons allotted in
their names. While Irfan Siddiqui, whose father AA Siddiqui was
Punjab DGP, got a .12 bore DBBL gun for Rs 15,000, Sumit Chalia,
whose father RS Chalia was a senior IPS officer, got a .32 bore
pistol for Rs 30,000.
Former Sikh
Gurdwara Judicial Commission chairman Kashmir Singh Patti, who was
largely seen as an anti-Badal leader propped up by the Congress, and
his two sons applied and got weapons.
While Kashmir
Singh Patti got a .12 bore DBBL gun for just Rs 3,500, his two sons
Mandeep Singh and Maninder Singh got .315 bore rifle and 7.62 MM
Pistol Mouser, respectively.
Over 1,000
applications are pending with the Home Department for allotment of
weapons. Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh said the allotments were
made as per an old policy. State police chief NPS Aulakh felt the
weapons could instead be given to the Punjab Police, which of course
often uses them to kill the wrong people and ha rarely fought shy of
fake encounters and cat-rearing among the ranks.
28 November, 2007
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