CHANDIGARH: The Union home ministry is understood to have circumvented established norms and gone out of the way to directly issue about half a dozen licenses of prohibited bores to the AISSF (Manjit) president Mr Manjit Singh and a few of his party activists without consulting the state government it is reliably learnt.

Manjit Singh has personally been issued a license of a .38 bore revolver a prohibited weapon while some of his close aides have been granted licenses for carbines.

Punjab government sources said that Manjit Singh and his associates were allotted the licenses by the home ministry without seeking any verification or recommendation from either the state home department or the police thereby confirming suspicions that this faction of the AISSF is tacitly in league with the Centre.

The licenses believed to have been issued directly by a joint secretary in the Union home ministry were granted even before the Punjab government was formally allotted its quota of 100 licenses for prohibited bore. The Centre had only recently resumed granting the Punjab government its quota for prohibited bores which was suspended after the Barnala govt was dismissed.

Under the established norms licenses for prohibited bores are issued either in case of an inherited weapon or to serving Army officers given licenses before 1982 or in case of exceptional security requirements.

Until recently deputy commissioners SSPs and even IGs were denied licenses for prohibited bores. The rules have been relaxed slightly but again only for officers posted on active field duty or for eminent persons or politicians facing serious threats.

Under normal procedures a license for a weapon has to be applied for in the deputy commissioner’s office.

State police and home department officials said that Mr Manjit Singh and his associates could not have been issued these licenses without entering into a tacit agreement with the Centre.

“The Union government does not issue licenses to persons publicly propagating Khalistan” said a senior police official.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 7, 1991