KARACHI - Sindh government’s initiative of computerising arms’ licenses in order to maintain a proper record of it had failed to meet its desired results despite several deadlines given to the arms license holders to submit it. Moreover, irregularities were also found in the arms’ licenses submitted at the district offices across the province.
The Sindh government in September 2013 banned issuance of new licences before launching a campaign against illegal weapons in Karachi in October 2013 in line with the Supreme Court orders that included verification of licences.
Later, the people were asked to complete the computerisation process for their licences till December 31, 2013. However, before the deadline ended, the Sindh government further extended it till January 31. Then, February 15 deadline was set. Later, May 19 was announced as the final chance to submit licences’ records for computerisation which ended on Tuesday.
After the deadline, the government also announced that it would launch a campaign to recover illegal weapons.
According to a data available with The Nation, so far 1,057,456 manual arms licenses were issued in the province and its division wise distribution is Karachi - 254,255; Hyderabad - 376,401; Mirpurkhas - 124,771; Sukkur - 150,923 and Larkana - 150,553.
Around 737,000 people took forms for computerisation of arms licences in the province of which only 550,340 submitted it to the respective district offices.
Out of the 550,340 forms submitted for computerisation, only 75,591 were sent to Nadra for issuance of computerised arms license book while more than 4,000 arms licence books had been issued to the applicants across the country. Speaking on condition of anonymity regarding less number of forms conveyed to Nadra for computerisation, the officials said thousands of fake licences were also submitted to the district offices for computerisation. “This shows that people were fooled by someone for making their armed licenses but the verification process at district offices unveiled their discrepancy,” he said adding some arms’ dealers were also involved in providing fake arms licences.
Giving example of large number of discrepancies in arms licences, the official said more than 30,000 forms were submitted at the Tando Muhammad Khan district for verification process despite the fact that only around 3500 arms licenses were registered in the district. “Those who submitted their licenses were sure of veracity that is why they submitted their licenses,” he said adding anyone having doubt over their verification could avoid submitting it. He also informed that soon after the verification process is completed, the government would initiate action against those having fake arm licenses and those who supported them.
Meanwhile, the records obtained from the home department suggest that the initiative taken by the provincial government to de-weaponise the province, establish proper computerised database and monitor the arms stock has not succeeded to a greater extent despite incurring a huge expense on the advertisement campaign.
Former Opposition leader in Sindh Assembly and PML-F leader Sheharyar Khan Maher also informed the Sindh Assembly during the ongoing session that the government had failed in its efforts to de-weaponise the city. The government had instead asked for around Rs60 million for advertisement of its ‘efforts’ by the home department in maintaining law and order situation of the province especially Karachi.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Rangers also announced a nine-day deadline to purge the city from illegal weapons on April 20, however, no concrete efforts were seen on ground in order to purge the city from illegal weapons.
The announcement was made by Director General Rangers Sindh, Major General Bilal Akbar, saying Karachiites have to submit the weapons till April 30 and also indicated that some licences issued by arms’ dealers were fake. According to DG Rangers the weapons used in target killing in the city were illegal.
Talking to The Nation, Rangers spokesman said they had initiated action against illegal weapons in the city and would continue it irrespective of influence and any other discrimination across the city. “Several weapons are being recovered on daily basis during raids carried out by the law enforcement authorities,” he added.