Georgian residents surrender deadly weapons to Georgian police

Thousands of bullets and almost a hundred weapons unlawfully possessed by locals have been handed over to Georgian police in the latest voluntary relinquish of arms.

Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs revealed 36 people from six towns in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region surrendered 8,041 bullets for various types of firearms, 77 hand grenades and eight sawn-off shotguns.

Four hundred grams of TNT explosives, an anti-tank missile and four smoke bombs were also handed over to police last week.

This was the fourth case of voluntary handover of a large amount of weaponry in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs this year.

Police said an investigation into the cases of illegal purchase, possession and storage of arms had been launched under Article 236, Part I of the Criminal Code of Georgia.

In the three previous instances of voluntary handover of arms in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region this year (February, April and May), the Ministry said citizens had handed over:

- More than 10,000 bullets for various types of firearms;

- About 250 hand grenades;

- 22 land mines; 

- About two dozen cartridges for various types of automatic weapons;

-  more than 20 sawn-off shotguns;

- 19  anti-tank missiles;

- eight detonators and 

- 1.5kg of explosive agent TNT.