Aurangabad: Prison guards across the state have been armed with .303 or 7.62mm self-loading rifles , which are among the most-trusted weapons of the police and paramilitary forces.The state home department has stopped the use of 410 bore musket rifles and trained the security personnel at the jails to use the new weapons. The prison guards were trained at Pune in the last week of December.State authorities said the decision to change the weapons was taken to thwart any attempt to break into the prisons, considering the past incidents in Punjab and Bihar.Special inspector general of police (prisons) Rajvardhan Sinha told TOI, “We have replaced the musket rifles. We have given roughly 2,000 weapons to the security staff at the central and district prisons spread across the state.”He said that the training for the usage and handling of the new weapons was imparted to the prison staffers, who have already started performing their duties as armed guards.When contacted, the authorities at the directorate general of police office said that the 410 bore musket rifles have been deposited at the armouries of the respective prisons. The call on their disposal is yet to be taken.The state has nine central prisons, 31 district jails and 13 open jails, which house over 35,000 inmates. This includes the convicts and those undergoing trial in different courts. Two-third of these inmates are lodged in the nine central prisons situated in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad and other cities.Leading gunsmith twins Dr Saad and Dr Saud Naqshbandi said that the 410 bore musket rifle is an obsolete weapon, which has its origin in the British era.“The single projectile .410 musket is a smooth bore with no grooves. Due to this, the bullets fired from it fail to stabilise, thus affecting the accuracy of the bullet in the long range. In foreign countries, it is used with pellets to train children before they graduate to using 12 bore and above weapons.”They informed that though .303 rifle is a World War I weapon, those manufactured after World War II are the ones still being used by Maharashtra police. They said that the 7.62mm SLR is an automatic rifle, having a battle range of 300 metres and can accurately hit the target at over 500 metres.As per the directives of the prison authorities, the short-listed, physically and mentally fit prison staffers, have been trained in the basic operating, disassembling, assembling and firing of rounds.

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