Monitoring arms licenses

There is fresh move at the level of State Home Ministry to bring about reformation in issuing arms license to applicants in the State. The matter had been under the consideration of authorities but now the Government seems to be seriously attending the matter. Earlier, the Home Secretary had twice issued directions to District Magistrates about adopting proper system and making desired entries in records about issuance and monitoring of arms licenses. But the Magistrates failed to comply with instructions. This has led to the Home Secretary deciding to bring complete transparency in the system by introducing on line arms license processing and monitoring mechanism
License for keeping arms is a matter of great responsibility. Generally license is issued to private individuals either with the purpose of self-defence or for petty game. There are very strict rules which have to be observed for keeping private licensed arms. The most important concern about issuing of arms license is that the arms could be misused and could be turned into a source of threat to public. Therefore the District Magistrates, who are authorized to issue arms license have a heavy responsibility towards the civil society.
The practice of issuing license for keeping arms has come down from the days of the British Raj. Rules and regulations covering the issuance are also those that were framed during the Raj. But situation on the ground has changed and a totally different social scenario has emerged in the country. Violence and intimidation are spreading among both rural and urban population. Economic and property interests are deep rooted and often become the cause of eruption of violence and mayhem.  Imagine out of 28,690 applications for license were made in the State this year out of which over 27,000 applications have been cleared for issuance of licenses. We have a break up of applications from different districts of the State. This is no small a number for a peace loving state like ours. It should not be forgotten that J&K State has been fighting externally sponsored and internally supported terrorism for last two decades and more. Very often, violence has erupted among the militants and their sympathizers leading to gun battles. In such a situation, the Government should have put a ban on issuing of licenses for some years till situation returned to complete normalcy. We must also take into account the sensitive social dynamics of our state where we have people of different faiths, cultures, languages and life styles living in traditional harmony. Possession of arms even with licenses would become an irritant unless arms are issued to meet the challenges of militants.
Way back in 2010, the Union Home Ministry had issued instructions to all states to maintain comprehensive database of all the arms licenses issued. However, relevant functionaries in our state took the notification lightly. On line processing and monitoring of arms licenses was not implemented. Now the Home Secretary is very much involved in streamlining both services viz. issuing license and of monitoring the use of arms. Under instructions from the Home Ministry, Magistrates are required to implement the web based centralized system designed and developed by National Informatics Centre for issuance, renewal and recommendation of extending the jurisdiction to the Home Department within one month positively. The District Magistrates are also required to upload the information relating to licenses issued earlier from their district in the software. In short all this exercise is being done to ensure that the weapons do not fall in wrong hands and secondly that these are not misused.  Home Secretary has been holding frequent meetings with the District Magistrates in this connection and is personally monitoring the online maintenance of the record.

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