Forest Department sets deadline to surrender country-made guns in Tirupattur

Forest Department in Tirupattur sets deadline for tribals to surrender country-made guns in exchange for general amnesty.

The Forest Department in Tirupattur has set September 30 as the deadline for voluntary surrender of weapons, mostly country-made guns, by tribals in Jawadhu Hills in return for a general amnesty.

It comes in the wake of three persons including a father-son being electrocuted after they stepped on an illegal live-electric fence erected to protect farmland from wild boars in Yelagiri Hills near Jolarpet on September 22. The forest officials recovered a country-made gun from the accident spot indicating that the deceased were poaching at the time of the incident.

“Apart from tribals, farmers also have such guns mainly to guard their crops from wild animals. We are coordinating with the district police to ensure more people surrender their weapons voluntarily,” said an official.

The officials said that in coordination with local revenue officials and police, village elders especially in the hills have been asked to discuss the amnesty offer with the locals and to convince those possessing guns to surrender their arms.

They further said weapons could be surrendered at public spots like temples, and that they need not be directly surrendered to the police to prevent the identity of the owner from being exposed. The initiative also pardons those tribals who are willing to surrender, as no cases would be filed against them for possession of guns all these years. 

“Once the amnesty offer ends, any seizure of weapons will invite penal actions against its owners,” an official said, adding that many people who are in possession of such weapons were unaware that it was illegal.

At present, the Forest Department does not have any data on the total number of country-made guns in the hills. They seize such weapons, time to time, with the latest such incident being in 2023 – three people were arrested for possession of unlicensed guns in Natrampalli and Vaniyambadi near Tirupattur.