Over 25% weapons deposited with police, gun houses so far

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, March 22

Even as the period for depositing arms with the police after the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct in view of the declaration of the LS poll has already elapsed, just over 25 per cent of weapons were deposited with the police or gun houses so far.

‘Deposit arms to avoid untoward incident’

The Punjab Police and the district administration are committed to conducting the elections in a free and fair manner and it is necessary that these weapons are deposited in time to avoid any untoward incident during the poll, said the Police Commissioner.

According to information, around 9,500 licensed weapons were deposited with the police and the gun houses in the city commissionerate as well as in the rural police district since the announcement of the general election to the 18th Lok Sabha.

Both City commissionerate and rural police combined have 41,900 arms licensed weapons. The district administration has asked the arms licence holders to deposit their weapons by March 19.

Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said that the city police have registered as many as 15,702 weapons of different types. “Around 4,500 licensed weapons were deposited with the local police till now,” he said, while adding that police officials were reaching out to licence holders to deposit their arms without any further delay else they would face stern action.

“The Punjab Police and the district administration are committed to conducting the elections in a free and fair manner and it is necessary that these weapons are deposited in time to avoid any untoward incident during the poll,” he said.

Similarly, the rural police have registered 26,237 licensed weapons and out of which around 5,000 arms were deposited so far.

Satinder Singh, SSP, Amritsar rural police, said police teams have been making announcements in villages appealing to the arms licence holders to deposit their arms with police station concerned or with gun houses forthwith.

Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Electoral Officer (DEO) Ghanshyam Thori said the district administration would extend the period as the time earlier provided was very short. “We ask the arms licence holders to deposit their weapons within a week or two,” he said. He also directed the guns houses to maintain the records of the arms deposited with them.

As per the orders issued by the Deputy Commissioner, the persons with high threat perception as recommended by the police authorities concerned, persons having licences in their official capacity like armed forces, police besides armed security guards of banks and other institutions dealing in cash or precious items were exempted from the prohibitory orders.