Twin City police launches drive against defaulting firearm owners

Reported by Santosh Jagdev

Bhubaneswar, Mar 28:

As part of the efforts to keep a watch on criminal activities in view of the general election 2014, Commissionerate Police has launched a special drive against firearm holders in the city.

Commissionerate police is going to take action against licensed gun holders, who fail to deposit their firearms with the police for the duration of the election as required under the law.

Commisionerate police, it may be noted, had issued a notification asking owners of firearms in the Twin City to deposit their arms with the local police station. According to the notification issued by the police commissioner, the owners of licensed arms should deposit them till the conclusion of elections. “The arms will be returned to them after the elections,” the order said.

Commissioner Dr RK Sharma revealed that till date, only 50 per cent of the owners have deposited their guns. “Out of 1596 licenced guns,only  744 have been deposited,”Sharma said adding that this is the part of special drive undertaken by city police for conducting elections peacefully.

City police have formed a screening committee to verify the applications from the owners to keep their guns during election. The next meeting of the committee would take place on Monday.

“We have already sent warning notices to the defaulting owners. Those who fails to respond to our notices we have the right to take action against them,” said Dr Sharma.

The order has been challenged by well known activist Biswajit Mohanty. In a petition filed before the Election Commission recently, he has sought rescinding of the blanket order arguing that the order is only applicable to those who have a history of past crimes or are potential trouble makers during the elections. He has cited a Bombay High Court judgment to prove his point.