Amritpal Singh’s aide Varinder Singh booked under Arms Act

Terminated from service in 2015, Varinder managed to renew gun licenses through officials from J&K’s five districts.

A case under the Arms Act was lodged against Varinder Singh, a close aide of fugitive separatist leader Amritpal Singh of ‘Waris Punjab De’, on Thursday in the Chenab Valley’s Kishtwar district.

The police said a First Information Report (FIR) was filed in Kishtwar district, where Mr. Varinder secured a gun license in 2013. Initial reports suggested that Mr. Varinder, who served in the Army’s 19 Sikh Regiment in Jammu and Kashmir, “procured a gun licence through fake documents”.

Terminated from service in 2015, Mr. Varinder managed to renew gun licenses through officials from J&K’s five districts, which included Kishtwar, Kathua, Reasi, Baramulla and Poonch. Another one of Mr. Singh’s aides, Talwinder Singh, had also procured a gun licence from Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier this month, the J&K Police arrested a Jammu couple for alleged links with Mr. Singh and was handed over to the Punjab police. It also surfaced that the arms licences of two bodyguards accompanying Mr. Singh were traced to J&K’s two districts and were cancelled. Those bodyguards, seen accompanying the pro-Khalistan Sikh leader in several videos, were identified as Mr. Talwinder and Mr. Varender. Mr. Varinder, arrested under National Security Act (NSA), has already been shifted to an Assam jail.

Around three lakh gun licenses were issued by the deputy commissioners in J&K prior to the erstwhile State becoming a Union Territory (UT) in 2019, mostly between 2012 and 2018. The gun licence scam where over 2.78 lakh illegal licences were issued in J&K is being investigated by the CBI “to establish any connivance between district magistrates and arms dealers”. The cover of the gun racket was blown by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Rajasthan in 2017, following arrests of criminals with gun licences from J&K on fake documents.