Sixteen sophisticated pistols, four arrests, two dismantled networks — and two of the accused are juveniles. Amritsar Commissionerate Police has delivered a sharp blow to illegal arms trafficking in the city, acting under Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann's ongoing drive to make Punjab a safer state, as announced by the Chief Minister's Office of Punjab on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

What the Amritsar operation uncovered

In a single coordinated breakthrough, Amritsar police cracked open not one but two separate illegal arms supply networks operating in the city. The haul — 16 sophisticated pistols — points to a supply chain with real firepower, not improvised street-level weapons. The inclusion of two juveniles among the four arrested raises a harder question: how deep into the city's younger population have these networks managed to reach?

The Commissionerate, which handles policing across urban Amritsar, has been at the frontline of anti-crime operations since the Aam Aadmi Party government took office in March 2022. This latest seizure adds to a pattern of targeted interdictions aimed at cutting weapon supply chains before they feed street crime.

Punjab's border problem and the arms pipeline

Punjab shares a long international boundary with Pakistan, and the state has faced persistent pressure from cross-border smuggling of weapons, narcotics, and cash. Successive governments have run targeted operations to disrupt these pipelines, but the challenge endures — partly because supply networks adapt quickly, recruiting new carriers, including, as this case shows, minors.

The Mann administration has framed law-and-order enforcement as a cornerstone of its governance pitch since assuming power. Sustained operations against organised crime and illegal arms have been a recurring feature of that agenda, with Amritsar — a city of enormous symbolic and strategic weight — often at the centre of headline actions.

Two minors, two networks, one city

The involvement of juveniles is the detail that cuts deepest here. It signals that at least one of the two networks had burrowed into communities where young people were being used — willingly or otherwise — as links in an arms supply chain. Investigators will now work to map both networks fully: who supplied the 16 pistols, where they were headed, and whether the two networks had any common origin.

Further arrests and a clearer picture of the supply routes are expected as the investigation progresses. For the residents of Amritsar, the seizure is tangible proof that the police drive is active — and armed.