The police in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls next month, are in a double-bind: not only are they finding it difficult to get gun-licence holders to deposit arms before the deadline, there’s no room at police stations even for the small proportion of weapons that have been handed over. It’s a routine exercise police have to undertake whenever elections are announced, but what has complicated matters this time is that the Mulayam Singh Yadav government has been rather liberal in granting gun licences. Another problem, the authorities say, is that many licence holders pull political strings to continue to keep their weapons, citing threat to their lives. When police started calling for weapons to be returned on March 1, they had over 8 lakh weapons to collect across the state in 10 days. All they could collect by March 14 was 3.39 lakh weapons. Some district magistrates are thinking of extending the deadline by up to a week and also of getting tougher.Crime-prone Bulandshahr district — which goes to the polls in the first phase, like other districts in western Uttar Pradesh — is a typical example. According to figures at District Magistrate Alok Kumar’s office, there are 18,487 weapons, of which only 7,548 were in on March 14. “We are trying hard to get all the weapons in within a week,” said Kumar. At the Sikandarabad Police Station, the small malkhana is full even though only 300 of the 1,100 weapons in its jurisdiction have been deposited, says Inspector S N Yadav.He says his men have so far been polite and sent the message twice to each licence-holder’s doorstep. “Now we have issued a warning that arms licences will be cancelled.” Rules require that weapons may either be deposited at police stations. Alternatively, they may be deposited at licensed gun shops, from which a receipt should be provided to the police. To ensure that alternative is not misused, the Election Commission has given strict instruction that police physically check to ensure that shop owners are not lying. This, an officer at the DGP’s office in Lucknow said, had made more people choose to deposit weapons at police stations. But the recovery rate still remains low: it’s below 40 per cent in Muzaffarnagar, with 20,000 licence-holders, Ghaziabad with 8,729, and Gautam Budh Nagar with 3,966. The Election Commission has taken special note of Meerut district, where 1,177 licences were issued in 2006 and 149 in the first 48 days of 2007. Predictably, recovery has been low: not even 30 per cent of the arms have been deposited, admits SSP Navniet Sekera. “We have cancelled 180 arm licences recently as these people had got arms as just status symbols. Another 200 licences have been cancelled as these people never bought guns and another 50 licences cancelled because some people bought guns but never bothered to collect their arm licences from the DM’s office,” says Sekera. In Agra, the district with the most licence-holders (23,779) in western Uttar Pradesh, it’s the same story. “Only 14,243 weapons have been returned,” says DM Sanjay Prasad. “I’ve extended the deadline from March 10 to March 15. Officers are going to each licence-holder to ensure we meet the target.” That could prove difficult, given the numbers involved. And this, it may be noted, is without taking into account the illegal weapons, of which there is no shortage in Uttar Pradesh.
