Lucknow, Aug. 17: The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to revoke the gun licences of all politicians with criminal antecedents as well as other individuals with such record.

The Mayavati regime will also withdraw guards with guns from tainted political leaders and contractors who had got state security during Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rule.

This decision came from chief minister Mayavati during a meeting with the senior superintendents of police from all 70 districts today.

J.N. Chamber, the principal secretary in the home department, said the decision was taken to stop the abuse of state security.

Explaining what “tainted” could mean, the director-general of Uttar Pradesh police, Vikram Singh, said: “Tainted could mean even one FIR against an individual. The assessment that a leader seeking an armed guard or a gun licence has a criminal background would be made by the police.”

During the previous Mulayam Singh regime, some 2,690 people were given state security, many of them with a criminal past.

MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh, better known as Raja Bhaiyya, has over 20 criminal cases against him, but he also had six armed guards from the government, apart from his six private security guards.

Atiq Ahmad, a gangster-turned-Samajwadi Party MP, had also been provided gun-wielding guards.

Raja Bhaiyya’s appeal in Allahabad High Court to stay a state government order slashing his security cover was dismissed yesterday.

A home department spokesperson said that in February, the state government withdrew the security cover given to 776 people following an Allahabad High Court order.

The Lucknow bench of the high court had asked the government to also withdraw armed security to those with a criminal past as well as those who had got security without following state rules.

Some 121 people of the 776 were found to have had criminal antecedents and so their security was revoked, but at the same time the Uttar Pradesh government was considering moving the Supreme Court against the decision.

In an earlier order, a division bench of Allahabad High Court had directed the government to withdraw the armed guards of student leaders within 24 hours. Fifty-five student leaders lost their security cover following this.