UP police to use British era rifles for last time during assembly polls
LUCKNOW : The decommissioned British era .303 rifles will be used by the state police forces for the last time during the UP Assembly elections. These rifles are kept in reserve for police personnel as the number of weapons may not be adequate for the massive deployment of forces for polling days, said senior police officials on Wednesday.
After being displayed during the Republic Day parade in 2020, these rifles were decommissioned from the UP Police.
ADG (law and order) Prashant Kumar confirmed that the British era .303 rifles will be used by the UP Police selectively during the Assembly elections while new era weapons have also been given to the force.
These rifles will also be used by police personnel, when the need arises, as the number of weapons may not be adequate for the massive deployment of forces, he explained.
These rifles will be used for the last time during UP polls and more new era weapons will be available to the police force by the General Election in 2024, said another police official.
The official said around 86,000 British era rifles were replaced by 86,000 semi-automatic rifles, including 63,000 INSAS rifles and 23,000 selfloading rifles (SLRs), in January, 2020.
The comptroller and auditor general of India, in his report in 2016, had revealed that around 48% of the UP Police force was using .303 bore rifles that were declared obsolete in February 1995.
The report stated that of the 1.22 lakh rifles available with the UP Police as on March 2016, 58,853 were of .303 category, he said.