LAHORE Hardened criminals equipped with latest arms and ammunition have put the police jawans in a fix who are yet carrying traditional rifles to maintain law and order situation across the province. Furthermore, no Shooting Refresher Course has been taken place since long in order to build police capacity enabling them to counter the dacoits and robbers, who are furnished with modern weapons and latest technology. Police high-ups also believed frequent usage of modern weapons in various crime bids like bank robbery, car dacoity, house robbery, and etc have put the police in total confusion as police jawans have no choice but to counter them with out-dated weapons. According to police capacity only five types of weapons are being used by the policemen across the Punjab including MP-5 Rifle (16 rounds), SMG (28 rounds), G-3 Rifle (20 rounds), Semi Automatic Rifle and 9MM Pistol (14). Whereas, from the recent bank robberies police top cops have observed that the dacoits and hardened criminals like kidnapers for ransom have been using up-to-date weapons including Kalashnikovs-444bore, Rifle-222bore, 9MM Pistol, Beretta Pistol, Rifles (8mm), Rifles (7mm), Pump Actions, Shot Guns (12bore), Guns (12bore), Pistol (25bore), Pistol (30bore), Revolver (32bore), Gauzy Guns and etc. Frankly speaking, the frequent usage of Kalashnikovs-444 and Rifle-222 in most of the bank robberies or huge robberies has almost puzzled the top cops, police sources said. Provincial police chief Javed Iqbal (via his spokesperson Miss Nabeela Ghazanfar) accepted police capacity/capability below the international standard. No doubt, the weaponry situation of Punjab Police does not match with the dacoits, who are outfitted with latest technology and weapons, Javed Iqbal said. He, however, said that a number of proposals had been submitted before the federal government for the allocation of funds for the aforesaid purpose. To a query, the police chief said the illegal smuggling of latest weapons from No-Go Area had been increased these days. The DIG Headquarters Haji Muhammad Aslam Tareen, final authority of distribution of Arms & Ammunition in Punjab Police, also pointed out that illegal arms dealers were also involved in aforesaid business. Earlier, he said, each shop was registered with police station concerned and police knew about the arms displayed at arm-shop, bio-data seller and purchaser. A SHO of the City Police said SP Headquarters had distributed arms and ammunition among the Citys police stations about 10 to 15 years ago. He said arms were distributed according to the strength of the police station. On the other side, police capacity had also dropped up-to the mark as no Shooting Training Refresher Course had been conducted from the last several years. Informers in police department said that the set of police rules interpreted that basic training was held once for constable, second for lower course (HC), third for intermediate (ASI), forth for Upper (SI) and thereafter advance for becoming inspector or DSP. For those inducted as ASI, training is held once for basic, second for Upper and third for Advance Course to become Inspector/DSP. So far, I remember I underwent all three courses and I was delivered only 10 to 20 bullets from the Range for each course, an inspector of the CCPO office said. He added that the recruits/constables were fixed to fire only 25 bullets once in the training. Thereafter, until the next stage of Course none of the constables were entitled or scheduled to undergo shooting refresher course etc, he said.