In our country, it is next to impossible for an ordinary citizen to obtain a gun license.
Whatever be the needs, whatever be the compulsions, whatever be the dangers, it is no
one's piece of cake. I mean to say, at least no 'law abiding citizen'. Criminals are having a
field day with their favourite 'toys'. Look at the incidents during the last few months.
Every other day there's a shooting incident. Even the children are found shooting each other
for a cricket ground. The last incident of shooting in the broad daylight in a DTC bus
that too in the heart of the city Connaught place has undoubtedly raised many questions about
the competence on the relevant authorities to check this ever growing menace.
"So where do all these guns come from?", is a million dollar question. Let us go to the
root cause of this arms evil. During the last decade, remember that there were dozens of
sting operations been carried out by various TV channels about illegal 'desi arms'
factories running in practically every street of Bihar and later in western UP also.
That was during the one a half decade of misrule and 'jungle Raj' in Bihar.
the cameras showed them care-freely assembling, polishing, shining these 'killing
machines' called 'desi katta'. Not only that, there were shops shown selling the obviously
'big factory made and branded
ultra-modern machine guns, AK series and even the SLR's 'procured' from God-knows
where!
Now the question arises, 'where has all that stuff gone'? They may have sold thousands
of pieces before been caught. There may be hundreds more such shops running without
getting caught. Many may still be working unhindered. Even if we assume that no
such trade is running at present, then also going by the science theory that 'the metter
can neither be created nor destroyed', those guns already sold must be lying somewhere
in the 'safe custody' of criminal elements 'one each' or 'more than one each'.
Unfortunately, there is no way to flush out these weapons scattered in 'thousands of
bedrooms'. These will come out if and only when the possesser decides to use them. Then too,
going by the competenece of the authorities have little chance to be caught before or even
after they have taken a few precious human lives!
We have no option but to awake and keep our eyes open in future at least.
(By Jyoti Narula)
(Shortly it will be an open forum for you to post your 'Nazaria'.)
New Delhi. May ,2010.