The police in Uttar Pradesh, which goes to polls next month, are in a double-bind: not only are they finding it difficult to get gun-licence holders to deposit arms before the deadline, there’s no room at police stations even for the small proportion of weapons that have been handed over.

It’s a routine exercise police have to undertake whenever elections are announced, but what has complicated matters this time is that the Mulayam Singh Yadav government has been rather liberal in granting gun licences. Another problem, the authorities say, is that many licence holders pull political strings to continue to keep their weapons, citing threat to their lives.

When police started calling for weapons to be returned on March 1, they had over 8 lakh weapons to collect across the state in 10 days. All they could collect by March 14 was 3.39 lakh weapons. Some district magistrates are thinking of extending the deadline by up to a week and also of getting tougher.

Crime-prone Bulandshahr district — which goes to the polls in the first phase, like other districts in western Uttar Pradesh — is a typical example. According to figures at District Magistrate Alok Kumar’s office, there are 18,487 weapons, of which only 7,548 were in on March 14. “We are trying hard to get all the weapons in within a week,” said Kumar.

At the Sikandarabad Police Station, the small malkhana is full even though only 300 of the 1,100 weapons in its jurisdiction have been deposited, says Inspector S N Yadav.

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