Illicit Arm Manufacturing in India

                    Just 200 KMs from Patna in Bihar, there is a town known as Munger. This town is historically known for its manufacturing of iron articles such as firearms and swords. Oriental Arms Co., leader in manufacturing weapons, was established in 1953 at Munger. It manufactured single and double barrel guns which are not in great demand these days. When the production dropped, it lead to 'illicit arms manufacturing'.

                    An account at the SBI, Munger branch alerted the police. One account number got regular cash deposits from Delhi, Sonepat, Berhampur, Manawar, Kapurthala and from places in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The account had more than Rs 15 lakh. This was found to be unusual. These cash deposits were payments from buyers of arms. In-order to avoid providing PAN details, they always deposited less than Rs 50,000.

When police traced this, they have found few interesting things:

•  The skilled workers (retired) from Oriental Arms company have started this illegal business and this has become a minor scale industry over the last decade.
• Whenever panchayat, assembly elections happen in Bihar, West Bengal or UP, there will be a sudden increase in demand for these arms.
• These arms will have a label - 'Made in Italy' and they will be of world class quality.
• Munger is famous for its SLRs, pistols, revolvers. There are wide variety of options available. A pistol costs Rs 8000 to 10,000 only. Country-made pistols cost Rs 2500-5000 which are very popular in the rural part of North. These are made up of iron rods of bicycles and other easily available materials.
• A country-made AK47 can be procured for Rs 50,000/- and a SLR for Rs. 20,000/-
• These arms are made by women and are transported by their Children. Transportation cost would be ranging from Rs.500 to 2000 depending on the distance.
• About 25% of Munger's population is into this kind of arms manufacturing. There are about 500 arms manufacturing units in and around Munger.
• As per Amnesty International, 50% of the total number of illicit arms worldwide come from India.
• These weapons have huge demand among the maoists, north east militants and the under-world.

The Current Situation:

                           All these years, even though the police knew about these illicit arms factories, they were able to do nothing since these manufacturers had a huge support from the local leaders. They used to have a wonderful market.

                           But things have changed after Nitish Kumar became the CM of Bihar (especially during his third term).  Nitish Kumar government has jailed over 56,000 criminals till date and due to this, the production could not meet the demand.

                           The customers are currently looking options out of Bihar. However, arms manufactured in UP(Azamgarh, Muzaffarnagar) , Rajasthan and MP do not match the quality of Munger weapons.
There is a necessity to uproot the illicit weapon business in India as soon as possible.