Mangaluru: Cops working overtime to get firearms deposited before March 18 deadline

MANGALURU: With date for notification of polls for Dakshina Kannada parliamentary constituency of March 19 looming large, police are working overtime to get licensed firearms deposited with licensed firearm vendors or the respective police stations.

The district has 10,234 licensed firearms, most of them guns (kovi) possessed by plantation owners to protect their crops from marauding animals.

Firearms owners have the option of depositing it either with their jurisdictional police station or with licensed firearm dealers, DC Sasikanth Senthil S said. While Dakshina Kannada district police has accounted for 2,924 firearms so far, city police have collected 687 firearms, superintendent of police B M Laxmi Prasad and deputy commissioner of police (law and order) Hanumanthraya, revealed at a media briefing that Senthil had convened.

Noting that none of the firearms owners had sought for exemption from depositing arms and likelihood of acceding to such a request with elections round the corner was unlikely, Senthil said security personnel including those guarding banks, ATMs, jewellery shops were exempted from doing so. Hanumanthraya expressed confidence that the city police will account for the 2,000 odd firearms in its jurisdiction before the March 18 deadline.

Besides, the 144 CrPC notification banning the carrying of firearms by licensed fire arms holders too automatically will come in to force once the elections are notified, Senthil said, adding possessing firearms after that will strictly be an offense. On reports that licensed fire arms dealers were charging fire arms owners for depositing their weapons, Senthil said if one is not so picky, they could do so at their jurisdictional police station as well.