The Interior Ministry issued about 84,000 arms licences from February 2008 to December 2010 in hassle prior to introduction of computerised system, and no application was entertained afterwards. The Ministry had received about 92,600 applications for non-prohibited bore arms licences, on which 83,700 arm licences were issued from February 2008 to December 2010, sources in Interior Ministry said.
There is no application pending in the Interior Ministry and now the matter is being handled by National Database and Registration Authority (Nada), they said, adding that the Nadra has developed a state-of-the-art arms licences management system for issuance of computerised arms licences.
They said that the arms licences issued by Nadra will be traced due to security features and it will be easy for law enforcement agencies to keep a check on illegal arms and also trace the person having arms licence any time. Old arms licence issuing system had many loopholes and one cannot identify the licence holder is a real person or a fake, they added.
They said that computerised arms licence is made of material used for current computerised national identity cards (CNICs) and it could also be used as legal identity document. Tuslin paper is being used for arms licence with other uses to avoid tampering or misuse, Interior Ministry sources added.
Weapons for which licences are permissible have been categorised as Non Prohibited Bore (NPB) and Prohibited Bore (PB) for which computerised arms licence will be issued within 15 days of receiving the demand note from the applicant, they said, adding that the licence will be valid for a period of five years.
The demand note, with multiple security features, is being issued to the applicant four days after receiving the duly filled application after which verification of the CINC and other quality control checks would be undertaken, they added. They said that the process of issuing arms licences would be systematic and transparent including approval from Interior Ministry before process starts after which Secured Weapon Procurement Authorisation (Demand note) is generated with an encrypted barcode.
Nadra ensures production and distribution of cards and generate instant reports for management decision, they said, adding that the application forms are received at Nadra centre with fee in cash after which the scanning and data entry is made.
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