There are 3,369,444 firearm licenses now active in India with 9,700,000 firearms registered to them. According to Small Arms Survey there are 61,401,000 illegal firearms in India. One third of them are in UP. There are over 400,000 active gun licenses in Punjab, surveys indicate that there are 11 lakh firearms in all in the state.
Many licensed gun holders declare them as heirlooms. I inherited seven beautiful guns from my father including a perfectly balanced Mauser .375 rifle for which ammunition was no longer being made. I surrendered all the weapons as they only lay at the Secunderabad Armoury owned by my friend Vishnu Vardhan Reddy Keesara. I sold them all, but could never figure out why the person who bought the Mauser did so as there was no manufactured ammunition to be had?
When LK Advani was Home Minister, I had suggested in a note that the average cost of gun licenses should be at least ₹5000-10000 per year to disincentivise ownership. Nothing happened as there was opposition from within the bureaucracy and retired services fraternity very many of whom were firearms owners.
The only alternative to possession of unlicensed weapons was a salutary mandatory minimum imprisonment. At least seven years.
The love for guns has in turn led to a demand for illegal arms which are not only easily available, but also within the budget:
Country-made pistols or “desi katta” is available for somewhere between Rs 2,500 to Rs 15,000.
Automatic country-made pistols price range between Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000. 0.30 bore and 9 mm pistol are priced between Rs 50,000 to 1.50 lakh.
Illegal weapons are manufactured in the jungles of Malwa-Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh, Shamli and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh besides Munger in Bihar. However, guns made in Uttar Pradesh are considered inferior as compared to Madhya Pradesh.
Besides Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh weapons are also being smuggled from Pakistan using drones.
The number of seizures have witnessed over 340 per cent rise over the last year. The BSF had recovered 3,322 weapons as compared to 750 in 2020.
While most cottage industry firearms are capable of usually firing a few rounds at short range they don’t pose a really lethal threat to national security. It is the proliferation of factory made handguns, rifles and shotguns capable of sustained use that actually pose a serious security threat.
The naxalite groups are still largely armed with licensed weapons taken away from their owners. Their AKs and INSAS weapons are relatively few and taken away from the police and para military. In the mid 90s a retired Air Chief ACM Dennis Lafontaine was dispossessed of all his licensed weapons by a naxalite gang from his home in Toopran near Hyderabad. (incidentally he was my neighbor and had police security, but the guards were fast asleep in their quarters.)
(Picture of weapons seized from an illegal arms factory in Munger, Bihar)
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