Chandigarh: A demand to relax firearms licence norms for people living in vulnerable areas triggered a discussion in the Punjab assembly on Thursday, with the state govt saying any easing of the rules would have to be balanced against the state’s already high number of licensed weapons.Raising the issue during zero hour, independent MLA Rana Inder Pratap said inadequate police strength had left isolated rural areas vulnerable to organised crime. He said elderly people living alone in deras and dhanis, often after their children had settled abroad, had become easy targets for criminals.Citing incidents of violent robberies, he urged the govt to simplify the process of issuing arms licences to law-abiding residents in vulnerable areas for self-defence. He also sought an easier mechanism for the renewal and transfer of arms licences within families.Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan backed the demand for simplifying the transfer of arms licences within families and suggested that arms licences issued in Punjab should also be recognised in Chandigarh.Responding to the discussion, Punjab minister Aman Arora said arms licences should be granted only to persons of good conduct and character. While acknowledging that licensed weapons could act as a deterrent in certain situations, he said Punjab, despite accounting for only about 2% of the country’s population, held nearly 10% of India’s licensed weapons, among the highest proportions in the country.Arora said this was one of the reasons for the state’s stringent licensing norms, adding that he had taken up the issue with chief minister Bhagwant Mann.
