Pune: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, in a written reply to the state assembly, has said no irregularities were found in the 433 firearm licences issued during the tenure of Amitabh Gupta and Jalinder Supekar as commissioner and additional commissioner, respectively, of the Pune police.While the CM made the written reply on July 8, 2025, in response to a star question raised on July 4, 2025, by BJP MLA Suresh Dhas, the question and answers were tabled during the recently concluded session of the state legislature. The CM’s reply stated, “A total of 433 firearm licences were issued during Supekar and Gupta’s tenure in Pune. The licensing authorities were found to have adhered to all the terms, conditions and provisions of the Arms Act, 1959, and the Arms Rules, 2016, while issuing these licences.“TOI made repeated calls to Gupta but there was no response till the time of going to press. Supekar said, “The truth has come out. We had followed all the norms.”During his visit to Pune on May 30, 2025, Fadnavis had announced that “all gun licences issued by the Pune police will be reviewed. If any foul play is found in the paperwork to obtain these licences, the same will be cancelled.”The CM’s announcement came against the backdrop of the Pune police cancelling the firearm licences issued in Nov 2022 to the Hagawane brothers — Shashank and Sushil — arrested in the Vaishnavi Hagawane dowry death case. A friend of Hagawane had allegedly obtained the firearm licence by providing misleading residential documents. Hagawane’s friend has a couple of criminal cases registered against him, and despite this fact, a firearm licence was issued to him.
