Panchayat polls: Deadline over, 2K licence holders yet to deposit weapons in Jhajjar

Tribune News Service

Ravinder Saini

Jhajjar, October 19

Despite the directives of the district authorities, more than 34 per cent licence holders are yet to deposit their firearms in view of the panchayat polls, starting from October 30.

The authorities had fixed October 18 as the deadline to deposit the firearms at the police station concerned but as many as 2,000 licence holders have failed to do so.

“There are as many as 5,815 arms licence holders in the district. Of them, 3,115 have deposited their weapons by October 18. Around 700 persons today deposited the firearms following the extension of the deadline for two days. But, some of the licence holders from the remaining 2,000 have applied sought exemption from depositing their weapons. These include sportspersons and security personnel, etc,” said a police spokesman.

SP Waseem Akram said the licence holders were persistently being asked through the media and public announcements to deposit their firearms at the earliest.

“Since there is a tendency among people to act on the last date hence we are hoping that the majority of the remaining licence holders will deposit their weapons within one or two days,” the SP said, adding that appropriate action would be taken against those failing to follow the directives.

Meanwhile, more than 41 polling stations in the district have been declared sensitive and hypersensitive in order to make adequate security arrangements for maintaining peace during the polls.

“A total of 715 polling stations have been set up in the seven blocks of the districts. Of these, 132 stations have been identified as hypersensitive and 164 sensitive in view of the previous poll history. Micro-observers will be deployed at all such polling stations,” sources said.

They said a maximum of 45 booths had been declared hypersensitive in the Matanhail block followed by Bahadurgarh (25) and Salhawas (19), Badli (16), Jhajjar ( 15), Beri (seven) and Machhrauli (five). Similarly, 79 stations have been identified as sensitive in Bahadurgarh, 25 in Matanhail, 22 in Machhrauli, 17 in Jhajjar, 11 in Badli, six in Beri and four in the Salhavaas block.

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