Growing gun culture in south India sets off alarm bells

BENGALURU: In March 2010, two unidentified people opened fire at CISF personnel just outside the high-security Isro campus in Byalalu, near Bengaluru. Their suspicious movements had attracted the attention of CISF personnel guarding the facility.
On being questioned, they had opened fire at the guards, forcing them to fire in retaliation. The two men eventually escaped.
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Bengaluru police nabbed Pankaj Kumar Roy, alleged to be a high-profile arms dealer who had even struck deals with LTTE agents, and confiscated weapons and ammunition.
More recently, in September 2014, Bengaluru police nabbed Pankaj Kumar Roy, alleged to be a high-profile arms dealer who had even struck deals with LTTE agents, and confiscated weapons and ammunition.
Bengaluru, and even other parts of Karnataka, are slowly turning into places where people are armed with illegal guns and revolvers. Police and other agencies crack some cases, while others remain undetected.
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“There is a problem and it’s growing. With the general level of tolerance in society declining, people are arming themselves, especially with illegal weapons.
This poses a great danger, and the department is working on such elements,” a senior police officer said.

According to information from the ministry of home affairs (MHA), nearly 300 people have been arrested in Karnataka over the past four years in connection with illegal arms cases, and 337 weapons have been seized. Documents show that in 2011, a total of 141 arms were seized by various agencies in Karnataka and this remains the highest till January 2015. In the first month of this year alone, six weapons were seized and nine persons arrested (see table).
“In 2012, we saw a lot of cases where people used weapons for bank or jewellery shop robberies. This was despite several seizures. But the number of seizures reduced and even the activity of such people has declined,” the officer said.
Across India, a total of 45,366 weapons have been seized from January 2011 to January 2015, and most of them, not surprisingly, from Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, UP and other known states. In South India, Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana) tops the chart with 921 seizures, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala have reported 290 and 139 seizures, respectively.