India News | DGP Orders Quarterly Inspection of All Gun Houses in Punjab

Chandigarh, Nov 18 (PTI) Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav on Friday ordered mandatory quarterly inspections of shops, premises and stocks of all gun houses across the state.

Yadav's order comes close on the heels of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann directing a review of all existing arms licences to check the gun culture in the state.

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The DGP has issued directions to Inspectors General of Police (IG) of all ranges, Deputy Inspectors General (DIG), all Commissioners and district police chiefs in the state.

He directed all the Senior Superintendents of Police (SSP) and Commissioners to ensure that Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSP) and Assistant Commissioners (ACP) mandatorily check the shops, premises and stocks of all gun houses in their respective subdivisions every quarter.

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The District Superintendent of Police is also required to conduct at least one inspection each year, he added.

"Rule 20.14 of Punjab Police Rules, 1934, authorises gazetted officers of the Police to inspect the shops, premises, and stocks of all licensed manufactures and dealers under the Arms Act every quarter," Punjab Police said in a statement.

Despite being only 2 per cent of India's population, Punjab has nearly 10 per cent of total licensed weapons at nearly 4 lakhs. There are 13 gun licences for every 1,000 persons in Punjab, said the statement.

There has been a huge influx of illegal weapons from across the international border and states such Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Although the weapons are illegally procured by anti-social elements, the ammunition is mostly pilfered from local gun houses, it said.

Yadav said there was an urgent need to enforce basic policing practice of gun house inspections by gazetted police officers to keep a check on the stocks and plug the pilfering of ammunition and misuse of licensed arms.

The Commissioners and SSPs have been asked to send district-wise quarterly reports to the armament branch of Punjab Police's Provisioning Wing while all range IGs and DIGs are told to monitor compliance.

Under fire from opposition parties for the alleged deteriorating law and order situation in the state, the Bhagwant Mann government recently ordered a review of arms licences within the next three months.

Mann had also ordered that any licence issued to an anti-social element must be immediately cancelled.

No new licence will be issued generally in the coming three months, the Punjab government has said, adding a licence should be issued only where it was utmost and genuinely required.

The government had also imposed a blanket ban on the public display of arms and ammunition, including on social media platforms.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)