What do Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati, Congress' Janardhan Dwivedi, Bharatiya Janata Party s Shahnawaz Husain and jailed Mohammad Shahabuddin have in common?

They are among the 750 MPs who have bought confiscated arms in the past 25 years, an RTI reply has revealed. While the Arminius and Erma revolvers were a hit among the VIPs during the early 1990s, Webly revolvers replaced them in the late 1990s. However, the last decade saw .22 bore revolvers and 7.65 mm Walther pistols being preferred.

In the reply given to an RTI filed by activist Gopal Prasad, the Commissioner of Customs (Preventive) said 75 MPs have bought various firearms from the government. According to a July 2002 circular by Finance Ministry, confiscated weapons can be sold to sitting MPs on first come fist serve basis after receiving their confirmation in writing that they do not own or possess any weapon at present.

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While he was the Chief Election Commissioner, M S Gill procured a S&W revolver in 1999 for Rs 24,750.

Delhi politicians Jagdish Tytler (.32 Browning pistol in 1989), V K Malhotra (.22 Benetla pistol in 1990), Madanlal Khurana (Walther pistol in 1993), Sajjan Kumar (Webly revolver in 1996) and Vijay Goel (S&W revolver in 1999) also find a place in the list.

According to the Finance Ministry guidelines, confiscated non-prohibited weapons could be given to departmental officers on lease terms on a selective basis.

The circular also makes it clear that the weapons sold to sitting MPs could not be sold for a period of ten years.

Though some names appeared more than once in the list during a period between 1986 and 2000 given in the RTI reply, the 2002 circular says that only one weapon will be allotted to an MP from the confiscated stock.