TN police to monitor sale of weapons to miscreants to reduce revenge murders

With several cases of revenge murders being reported in Tamil Nadu, the state police on Thursday, September 30 rolled out measures to monitor illegal purchase and supply of weapons to miscreants. A statement from the Tamil Nadu police department ordered weapon manufacturing units across the state to install CCTV cameras at their workshops. Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) C Sylendra Babu recently introduced ‘Operation Disarm’ and formed a special police team to nab the accused in connection with four revenge murders reported in Dindigul and Tirunelveli districts.

According to the statement released by the state police department on Thursday, since the operation was rolled out, 3,325 people have been arrested. From them, the police have seized 1,110 knives and seven unlicensed guns besides other weapons across the state. The statement further said that the workers of all the weapon manufacturing units in the state are being called to the nearest police station for a meeting regarding the sale of weapons. The state police department said that till date, it has conducted 579 meetings with 2,548 workers.

Subsequently, the DGP in the statement listed a set of regulations for police of respective districts for monitoring of tools such as machetes, knives, hatchets and sickles.

The higher officials and police inspectors of each district are ordered to procure the details of workers and locations of each weapon manufacturing unit in their district. The statement added that the weapons should not be sold to unidentified persons and those purchasing the tools should provide their name, address, contact number and reason of purchase and the same should be entered into a register.

Further, the usage of such tools will be allowed only for agricultural and household use, added the statement. Besides installing CCTV cameras, the weapon manufacturing units have been urged to cooperate with the local police. To prevent further incidents, the DGP in the statement said that those providing information about miscreants to the police will be rightfully rewarded.