The South Indian Movies Dummy Effects Association (SIMDEA) has moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the police to devise a procedure for hassle-free movement of dummy weapons offered on hire by members of the association for shooting of movies.
The association claimed the police seized two dummy guns from assistant director Victor when he was transporting them to Karaikudi for the shooting of Suriya starrer Etharkkum Thunindavan on August 7. Subsequently, 150 more guns were seized from a godown in Chennai.
In an affidavit filed through its counsel M. Balaji, the association stated it had made a representation to the Police Department way back in 2014 for issuance of identity cards to its members and also to issue licences for each and every dummy weapon after verifying its details. Subsequently, it was followed up with an application under the Right to Information Act in 2017 to know the status of the 2014 representation. Yet, till date, no steps had been taken to verify the dummy weapons and assign identification numbers, the association complained.
In the meantime, based on the orders passed by the Bombay High Court on a writ petition filed by Movies Action Dummy Effects Association, the Greater Mumbai Police had devised an elaborate procedure for transportation of dummy weapons, the SIMDEA said.
According to the procedure put in place in Mumbai, all dummy weapons were numbered and marked for identification after being produced before the arms and ammunition branch of the Police Department.
It had been made mandatory to carry the original licence or pass while transporting the dummy weapons along with the identity cards. Any new addition to the collection of dummy weapons must also be produced before the police for assigning identification numbers. A similar procedure could be adopted by the Greater Chennai Police too, the association said.
