Uttar Pradesh is first on the list of States in the number of active gun licences, with 12.77 lakh people authorised to carry weapons. Jammu and Kashmir comes second with 3.69 lakh people possessing arms licences, show statistics released by the Home Ministry.
The country has 33,69,444 active gun licences as on December 31, 2016.
Punjab, which witnessed terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s, has 3,59,349 active gun licences, most of which were issued during the two decades when militancy engulfed the State.
There are 2,47,130 active gun licences in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Haryana where 1,41,926 people are authorised to carry weapons, it said.
Other States with a large number of licensed gun holders are Rajasthan (1,33,968 licences), Karnataka (1,13,631), Maharashtra (84,050), Bihar (82,585), Himachal Pradesh (77,069), Uttarakhand (64,770), Gujarat (60,784) and West Bengal (60,525).
Delhi has 38,754 licensed gun holders, Nagaland 36,606, Arunachal Pradesh 34,394, Manipur 26,836, Tamil Nadu 22,532 and Odisha 20,588.
Assam has 19,283 active gun licence holders, Meghalaya 18,688, Jharkhand 17,654, Mizoram 15,895 and Kerala 9,459, the figures show.
The lowest number of gun licences is in small Union Territories such as Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, where 125 gun licences each were issued, the Ministry said.
