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| Sunday, 6 January 2002 |
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Police tough on violators by JAYAMPATHY JAYASINGHE The police are keeping tabs on the surrender of illegal firearms and weapons in the possession of unauthorised persons as the amnesty period ends on January 15. A senior police officer told the Sunday Observer that statistics regarding those possessing such firearms and weapons in various parts of the country have not yet been finalised by the police divisions. The police would take tough action on those who flout this directive as the amnesty period has not been extended beyond January 15 by the Interior Ministry. The government granted an amnesty from January 1-15 for the unauthorised firearms to surrendered . Meanwhile, Senior Superintendents of police in charge of respective Divisions have been instructed by the police headquarters to comply with the directive of the interior Ministry. A senior police officer said that he was unaware of such a directive being issued by the Interior Ministry despite wide publicity being given to that effect in the print and electronic media. However, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry when contacted said that it had received wide publicity in the news media and the police have been ordered not to prosecute those who surrender such firearms and weapons during the amnesty period. Intelligence reports suggest that there is a proliferation of illegal firearms in the country and a large number of these are in the possession of underworld gangsters and criminals. Some of these weapons it is learnt have been sold to them by terrorist groups while the rest were smuggled by "service" deserters. However during the height of the 1988 JVP terror the Defence Ministry had issued weapons to several political parties for their defence and it is not known whether they have all been surrendered after the situation returned to normalcy. Recently, police raided a house of a politician in the Puttlam district and recovered a haul of weapons concealed in his house. The politician was arrested and was later remanded. At a recent media briefing, Interior Minister John Amaratunga said that there were around 15,000 illegal firearms in the possession of unauthorised persons and steps had to be taken to recover them. Meanwhile reports suggest that about 1500 murders were committed annually in addition to other forms of crime and this was mainly due to the alleged possession of firearms by criminal and underworld gangsters. |
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