Be ready to lose licence for flaunting gun on social media

ROHTAK: The state police is set to cancel weapon licences of those who have been keeping guns just for fun or to assert their dominance.

In one such case, the Rohtak police on Wednesday recommended cancellation of the licence of a Jind youth, whose cousin had posed with his licensed gun in a photograph uploaded on Facebook.

The police said they had received a tip-off about Jind resident Suresh Soni uploading his photo with a gun on his Facebook page. Upon investigation, it was found that the gun belonged to Suresh’s cousin Sonu and it was a licensed weapon.

“Suresh’s act of clicking a photo with someone else’s weapon and then uploading it on social media for show-off is a violation of the Arms Act. We have sent a letter to Jind SP recommending cancellation of the licence since Sonu wrongly passed on his gun to his cousin,” Rohtak SP Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said.

He said the police were getting a lot of photographs from alert citizens regarding people misusing their licensed weapons to create fear. “It has been noticed that people holding licensed guns fire at others over trivial issues in order to show their power. We are starting a special campaign to stop these incidents,” Randhawa said.

In another incident, the CIA wing of Rohtak police on Wednesday arrested a Sonepat youth who had posted his picture with a country-made pistol on his Facebook account. Accused Rahul alias Gullu is a gym trainer and had illegally obtained the pistol to create his fear among customers, police said. “In case the weapon is licensed, we will cancel the license and if the weapon is illegally kept, we will arrest the accused,” Randhawa warned.