Number of new arms licences issued in Delhi sees a seven-year low

According to the data of the last seven years provided by the police's licensing department, 77 arms licences were issued last year as against 1,390 applications received.

new arms licences issued in Delhi, Misuse of firearms, involvement or conviction of applicants in criminal cases, curbing gun culture, Delhi Police officers, indina express

Data showed that the rejection of licences has seen an upward trend, with 602 applications rejected last year, as compared to 33 in 2020 and 476 in 2021. (Express Photo)

Written by: Arnabjit Sur

3 min readNew DelhiApr 12, 2023 10:21 AM IST First published on: Apr 12, 2023 at 05:35 AM IST

Misuse of firearms, involvement or conviction of applicants in criminal cases, and curbing gun culture in the national capital are among the reasons cited by Delhi Police officers for issuing the lowest number of arms licences last year since 2015.

According to the data of the last seven years provided by the police’s licensing department, 77 arms licences were issued last year as against 1,390 applications received. Data showed that the rejection of licences has seen an upward trend, with 602 applications rejected last year, as compared to 33 in 2020 and 476 in 2021. Renewals of licences also saw an increasing trend, the data showed, as 10,064 licences were renewed last year, as against 3,505 in 2019, 5,739 in 2020 and 9,649 in 2021.

Senior officers said the low number of fresh licences granted and the high rejections can be attributed to the stringent criminal verification system to ascertain an applicant’s profile and necessity to be allowed access to a weapon.

Said an officer: “Whenever a person applies, we coordinate with local police concerned, where the applicant is a resident, to check through our internal portal, for any criminal cases against him or her… If the report received is negative, we deny the licence accordingly. The applicant also has to get approval from all necessary supervisory bodies and provide a firearm training certificate.”

Another officer said that often, after being granted a fresh licence, the licensee has to purchase or acquire a weapon within two years; however, applicants fail to do so. “Once this time period collapses, the licence granted or renewed stands invalid,” said the officer.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Licensing) O P Mishra said, “The grant or renewal of licence has to be justified by the applicant. I often call them to hear them in person as to why they require a weapon… most of them cite generational possession of weapons and personal security as reasons.”

“One of the reasons for high number of renewals is that we have cleared a lot of applications that were lying pending for the past few years,” he said. Mishra also said national and international level shooters who apply have been promoted by the Delhi Police and granted licences in an expeditious manner.

An officer said that in case an applicant cites an apprehension of a crime against him, a threat assessment is carried out in coordination with local police stations after interviewing the applicant.

Officers said that while permission to grant licences for non-prohibited bore weapons, such as handguns of calibre .35, .32, .22 and .380, comes under police’s licensing department, those for prohibited bore weapons, like 9 mm pistols, handguns of .38, .455 calibre or .303 rifles and automatic or semi-automatic guns, falls under Ministry of Home Affairs.