Trigger happy city: Jalandhar police issued one arms licence daily in 2016

On each day of this year, one person had been issued a weapon licence by the city police while in the year 2015, 509 licences were granted on 365 days of the year.

The city currently has a total of 6,161 arms-licence holders who possess 7,472 weapons in the jurisdiction of the police commissionerate.

As per the details gathered from the sources, from January 1 to till Thursday this year (343 days of the year), 343 arms licences have been issued by the police to 333 males and 10 females. Out of these, 203 have acquired weapons.

In 2015, the city police was generous enough to hand over 509 arms licences. The figure included 500 males and remaining ones were females. While in 2014, the police had issued only 229 weapon licences.

This year, 448 people had applied and 1,510 sought renewal of their licences. The city police commissioner Arpit Shukla has asked all the arms-licence holders to deposit their weapons with the police stations concerned of their area before the election code of conduct comes into force.

A police officer said as the election code of conduct can be imposed any time in the upcoming days; it will be good for the city police to have these weapons in its custody.

Strict instructions have been issued to all police stations, directing them to ask people to submit their weapons in the wake of polls. The state election commission has already directed the Punjab Police to collect the weapons to maintain law and order during the election.

However, amid gunshot-related crime incidents reported this year, city police had claimed to review the licence-awarding process but it seems nothing substantial has been done on the ground.