Arms licence holders were made to wait till the swearing-in ceremony of the new Punjab chief minister, Bhagwant Mann, before their weapons were returned to them. Many such persons made a beeline for the police stations where they had deposited their weapons after code of conduct came into force in the state ahead of the assembly elections.
Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Civil Lines, said he had been visiting the police station concerned to get his .32 bore revolver back since March 11, a day after the election results were declared. But the police, he said, were waiting for further orders regarding the process.
“The cops asked me to come on March 16 after the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected chief minister. They finally returned the weapon on Wednesday evening,” he added.
After the model code of conduct was imposed in Punjab, the Ludhiana police had asked a total of 16,640 arm licence holders to deposit their 19,400 weapons to the gun houses or police stations concerned.
Around 98% of them had deposited their weapons following the orders.
The police had asked them to get their weapons back after March 10.
{{/usCountry}}The police had asked them to get their weapons back after March 10.
{{/usCountry}}Sukhwinder Singh, a resident of Seeta Nagar, said earlier, the police used to return the deposited weapons immediately after the results were announced.
This time, he said, the police took at least six days to return the weapons.
As per sources, after the AAP won with the landslide margin, police officials waited for the response from the newly formed government.
A senior officer said after getting the nod from the state government, they started returning weapons from Wednesday.