Exclusive | Himanta’s bid to arm people in Assam’s ‘vulnerable’ areas off to slow start: 266 applications, 28 rejected, none accepted

On August 14, the government launched an online portal on which people can apply for arms licences under this scheme. The processing time for applications is 90 days.

As of September 20, The Indian Express found that 266 applications had been received on this portal, of which 28 had been rejected. Of the 238 open applications now, 156 or 65% are from the Muslim-majority district of Nagaon in central Assam. The second highest number of applications, at 37, is from Dhubri, another Muslim-majority district located along India’s border with Bangladesh.

Nagaon District Collector Devashish Sharma told The Indian Express that the administration is approaching the matter with caution, and that it is yet to forward any of the applications to the district police for verification, choosing to counsel applicants first.

The eligibility criteria for the grant of licenses through this portal are that the applicant must be “an indigenous citizen from Assam”, must be at least 21 years old, must reside in a “vulnerable and remote area,” must not have a criminal background or pending cases, must be “physically and mentally fit,” and must have a training certificate under the Arms Rules, 2016.

On the portal, which is part of the Assam government’s citizen digital services portal Sewa Setu, applicants need to attest to an eligibility declaration that they are an “original inhabitant” and that “I reside in a vulnerable or remote area and genuinely perceive a threat to my life and safety due to regional vulnerabilities.” The portal requires an applicant to specify their identity and justify the “need for a licence.”

“As part of the process, we have to ask the police to verify the applicants’ antecedents and provide a report. But we need to apply our conscience and a very deep thought process before issuing an arms licence to a young person. And since the police are already overburdened, we are trying to ascertain vulnerability and threat perception before forwarding any case to the police. I have been holding one-on-one interactions with applicants for this. I also try to impress on them how the possession of a firearm is more of a liability than an asset, and in most instances, they realise that they are being driven more by the fascination of carrying an arm than any genuine threat perception. The intention of the state government is not for young people to be freely armed, but for people who are in very sensitive border or remote locations. So far, this has not been the case here,” said Nagaon DC Sharma, saying that most of the applicants are between the ages of 25 and 40.

Saying that the applications have come from different parts of the district, including the main Nagaon town itself, he added, “In multiple instances, I have also had applicants’ wives come and tell us not to issue arms licences to their husbands.”

A district official from Goalpara district, another district with a sizeable minority population, said that some applications there have been rejected because the administration concluded that the criteria of threat perception were not fulfilled. “There have to be justifiable grounds to issue the licence,” said the official.

According to the 2011 census, 55.36% of Nagaon’s population is Muslim, and Bengali-origin Muslims account for most of this. The district has seen repeated instances of election-related violence, including during last year’s Samaguri by-poll and earlier this year during the panchayat polls.

Nagaon BJP president Ranjit Bordoloi referred to an incident which took place last month in the town. A roadside altercation between a Bengali-Muslim man and an Assamese Hindu had resulted in the former assaulting the latter, which caused outrage in the state and even prompted the government to rename the area where the incident took place from Daccapatty (Dhakapatty) to Rupkonwar Chowk.

“Incidents like this have made people feel like they need to take measures for their protection because they’re a minority here,” he said.

However, All Assam Minority Students’ Union general secretary Minatul Islam, who is from Nagaon, said that the numbers are “surprising.” “The election-related violence that took place was in completely minority-dominated areas, committed by minority people and affecting the minority. There isn’t a history of animosity between Hindus and Muslims as such,” he said.

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