“Gujarat police has guns but no bullets to fire from it,” Minister of State for Home Amit Shah told the Assembly today, lamenting that several of its key demands relating to police modernisation were “turned down” by the Centre.

“We have been asking for bullets for our police force since last the three years but got nothing,” Shah said during discussion on ‘Modernisation of Police Fund (MPF)’ raised by BJP MLA Nanu Vanani from Surat (North).

“The situation is such that we do not have enough bullets for our policemen to practice. We have guns but no bullets to fire from it. The centre tells us to practice once every three year instead of every year due to lack of bullets, how strange” he said.

Gujarat is high on terror radar and it had witnessed serial blasts in July 2008, in which 57 people were killed.

The minister also lamented the fact that the Union government has reduced allocation under MPF from Rs 119.53- crore in 2000-01 to Rs 49.