Hyderabad: The governments of Kerala and Maharashtra have taken action against rifle associations in Kochi and Pune respectively for violating rules and for selling imported weapons to others illegally.
The Kerala High Court on January 30 directed the CBI to take over the investigations into four cases relating to alleged misuse of arms and ammunition by the Kerala State Rifle Association.
The petitioner in the case said the KSRA had procured about 30,403 rounds of .22 Tenez Eley, more than 10 lakh rounds of .33 WC Magetec and 49 lakh rounds of air rifle pellets.
In the second case, the Palakkad District Rifle Association procured 11,500 rounds of ammunition from the KSRA secretary. The third case was against unknown persons who had registered an association in the name of KSRA using forged documents at Alappuzha registrar’s office.
The fourth case was against the Kottayam District Rifle Association’s ex-secretary for non-maintenance records for the purchase of ammunition.
Similarly, a case was registered in 2013 against the president and secretary of the Rajasthan Rifle Association for alleged misuse of 1.28 lakh cartridges since 1998.
The Maharashtra police has registered a case against the Maharashtra Rifle Association for selling firearms without any valid licence. The Maharashtra government had also cancelled gun licences shooting gold medallist and Arjuna awardee Ashok Pandit for violating rules.
