Punjab Police bust fake arms licence racket in Tarn Taran

Chandigarh: Punjab Police have busted a fake arms licence racket with the arrest of two gang members, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said here on Wednesday.

The racket was running from a sewa kendra (service centre) in Tarn Taran at the behest of district manager Suraj Bhandari, who is on the run.

Yadav said the arrested gang members include service centre employee Harpal Singh and photostat shop owner Baljit Singh, who admitted to being the brains behind the tampering of identity proofs, including Aadhaar cards and arms license proforma, to facilitate the preparation of the fake arms licence.

Police teams have also recovered a laptop containing details of the various edited documents and online open-source software used for tampering with documents, he added. The racket was uncovered following the arrest of Bablu on April 9 in an attempted murder case, as he, during interrogation, confessed to owning fake licensed weapons, along with co-accused Kanwardeep Singh.

The DGP said following the revelations of Bablu, police teams started investigations and discovered that the weapon licence was verified from the Deputy Commissioner's Office in Tarn Taran but was not reflected in the official record. Moreover, criminals with adverse records, originally residents of Amritsar, were utilising facilities at Tarn Taran to make fake licences on the basis of forged Aadhaar cards, he added.