Police crack down on e-commerce sites selling ‘illegal’ knives

Delhi Police seized 50 illegal knives from e-commerce platforms, including Blinkit, violating Arms Act regulations. Crackdown follows murder investigations.

The Delhi Police on Wednesday said they have launched a crackdown on e-commerce platforms selling knives larger than the permissible standards and have seized at least 50 such weapons from multiple stores and a Blinkit warehouse in Delhi and Gurugram.

A first information report (FIR) under multiple sections of the Arms Act was registered last week at Khyala police station following the recovery of illegal knives. (AFP)

A first information report (FIR) under multiple sections of the Arms Act was registered last week at Khyala police station following the recovery of illegal knives.

According to government regulations, only knives with blades up to 7.62 cm in length and 1.72 cm in width may be sold online; selling larger blades violates the Arms Act and constitutes a criminal offence.

Deputy commissioner of police (west) Sharad Bhaskar Darade said the crackdown on online platforms began after investigations into two murder cases reported at Khyala police station revealed that the knives used in the crimes were purchased through an e-commerce website.

Accordingly, Khyala police were asked to check all e-commerce sites for illegally listed knives.

“During checks, it was found that Blinkit was selling knives online. Our personnel placed an order for one ‘Stanley’ knife on Blinkit. The knife that was delivered to us was found to be a ‘gararidar (opened and closed manually)’ knife, and its blade was 8 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. It was an illegal weapon being sold in violation of government specifications,” Darade said.

Accordingly, the case was registered and an investigation was taken up. During the investigation, officers contacted the company and sought details of all its stores and warehouses in the Delhi–National Capital Region (NCR). After obtaining the list, investigators visited the company’s stores in Delhi and recovered 16 more similar knives on February 15.

“Another 32 such knives were seized from Blinkit’s warehouse at Farrukhnagar in Gurugram, Haryana,” Darade said, adding that the crackdown will continue.

HT contacted a Blinkit representative responsible for media communication, but she said the company did not want to comment on the matter at this time.