Substantial seizure of firearms round the year, busting of unauthorized firearm manufacturing units here and there and now open advertisements for the sale of arms and ammunition in public domain have perturbed police across South
Bengal districts.

Online advertisements, complete with photographs and WhatsApp contact numbers inviting commercial deals of arms (see pictures) that read – “Hamare yahan Desi Katta pistol, revolver of different bores aur sabhi saman archit rate se diya jata hai (we supply country-made pistols revolvers at genuine prices)” has raised eyebrows of netizens and also mounted pressure on police ahead of Diwali.

The posting of the flyers on various social media platforms, according to police is in contravention of the provisions of the Arns Act, 1959. “Since license from the government is mandatory for sale, purchase of guns any type of commercials, billing or advertisement related to such products are not permitted in India.” a police officer said.

The Advertising Standards Council of India also prohibits any commercial advertisement relating to the sale or purchase of firearms and ammunitions. The unauthorized advertisements were first noticed by netizens on a Facebook page titled ‘Asansol Durgapur Bouncers’-a public group mostly frequented by the youngsters that have as many as 8,8000 members.

One member identified as Anil Jatt made the prohibited post on 17 October first, which promptly went viral. The Commissioner, Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate, Nilkanth Sudhir Kumar told The Statesman: “Soon it came to our notice, we started a hunt for the offender and the page administrator was summoned.”

He added: “The youth who posted this was detected as a resident of Haryana. We are keeping eye on him.” The administrator of the page Janardan Bagdi. a resident of Burnpur, Asansol and an event manager by profession, meanwhile, has quit the page. He said: “Jatt posted it on his own. I’ve left the group after police quizzed me on Friday.”

One Kaben Sebastian who claims to be a fashion designer from Goa became the page administrator and on Saturday gave a caution – “don’t post any advertisement for sale of illegal things like guns.”

The Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate has made substantial seizures of firearms and ammunition over the past three or four months. On 3 August the Burdwan East police busted an illegal firearms manufacturing unit at Lohapota village in Katwa and seized 3 pistols, 17 cartridges with two arrests.

On 25 October, Asansol police busted another illegal firearms factory operating at Rahamatnagar in Hirapur police station limits and booked the kingpin Mohammed Javed, his wife Farzana with subsequent arrests made
in Burnpur.