Arms dealers must get themselves registered: PM

New Delhi, Oct 14 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today suggested the need to evolve a ''mechanism'' to make it mandatory for arms dealers to get themselves registered.

Asked to comment on the recent CBI raids and the mentioning of the name of a former Defence Minister George Fernandes for his alleged role in an arms deal, the Prime Minister said, ''I do not like to comment on any specific case or individual.'' ''Investigations are under way. Legal process must proceed under the established rules of the deal,'' he noted.

Dr Singh was talking to mediapersons who accompanied him on his just concluded trip to London and Helsinki on the special Air India flight while returning here.

He said the assumption was that there were agents working for the arms deal. There was also the view that those agents can not be done away with, ''but we should know who are these agents''.

''I think it requires some reappraisal. If we cannot do away with such agents we should at least know who they are. I think some mechanism is needed. For this there is the need to identify them,'' the Prime Minister asserted.

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