LAHORE: Arms licences issued by Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) in the shape of smart cards and computerisation of the record of weapon manufacturing, selling and repairing is being fast introduced in Punjab province where gunrunning has been horrifyingly easy and helped by corrupt government officials.
Official sources say that rules were being amended for the shift to the computerised cards. The Punjab government has already signed an agreement with Nadra for the issuance of the cards and computerisation of the record of all three stages - weapon manufacturing, selling and repairing.
The system is likely to be in place in the next two to three months in the big cities of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad and Gujranwala. The remaining Punjab districts would be covered in a further two months time.
The officials frankly admit the government does not have any idea of the extent of illegal weapons in the province but they say their number could defy highest of projections. The most disturbing fact, they say, is the presence of countless illegal weapons licenses, manually prepared by the corrupt among staff in the district governments. The number again is high, showing organised gunrunning.
The issuance of illegal licenses is a mega fraud committed right under the nose of the DCOs [district coordination officers], says a senior government official.
As per the home department record, the number of arms licenses in the province should safely be 1.7 million. If all of them had been renewed this year at the rate of Rs1,000 per license, the government should have collected Rs1.7bn.
But it received just Rs600m meaning thereby that only 600,000 licenses were renewed. “The rest of the licenses were made illegally and were therefore not renewed,” a senior official inferred.
As for the procedure, applications are received on printed forms which are easily available. Police verification is attached mentioning particulars of the applicants.
The method adopted by the corrupt is simple: Duplicate books are secretly kept in which the unauthorised licenses are entered. These books are later destroyed.
INTERNEWS
