The Ministry of Interior has yet to verify as many as 119,409 non-prohibited bore (NPB) arms licences and 67761 prohibited bore (PB) licences issued by the Ministry during the previous government of Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
"Punjab province topped the list with issuance of 26,037 PB licences, followed by Sindh and Balochistan issuing 13773 and12489 PB arms licences, respectively. Some 12,135 licences were issued in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 2,731 in Islamabad, 523 in Fata, 44 in AJK and 29 in Gilgit-Baltistan," official sources said. Punjab also took the lead in the issuance of NPB arms licences, with the previous government issuing 46,612 NPB arms to the residents of Punjab, 29,670 in Sindh, 24,912 in KP, 14,675 in Balochistan, 32,249 in Islamabad, 27 in AJK and 23 in Gilgit-Baltistan. "These non-verified licenses were issued mostly on fake ID cards," sources maintained.
The previous government issued 13954 PB and 43,457 NPB arms licences in 2008; 11,165 PB and 32,088 NPB in 2009; 8,957 PB and 22878 NPB in 2010;7,970 NB and 7326 NPB in 2011; 22,015 NB and 4,736 NPB in 2012; and 22,015 NB and 8827 NPB in 2013, they said. They said Ministry of Interior has so far not initiated any probe against the officials responsible behind issuance of arms licences on fake documents to thousands of applicants. However, National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) is conducting revalidation of arms licences issued by Ministry Interior, they said.
Sources said the revalidation of arms licences was ordered by the previous government following evidence that Ministry of Interior issued licences on forged documents. The present government has only extended the last date of revalidation from December 2013 to June 30, 2014, they said.
Sources said that Nadra-issued original CNIC and original licence is a prerequisite for revalidation. Under the revalidation process, Nadra is verifying the CNICs of applicants from its database as well as sending applicants' credentials to Ministry of Interior for cross-checking through law enforcement agencies, sources said. Every member of the National Assembly got 200 licences for prohibited bore weapons, including Kalashnikov, sub-machine guns and other automatic weapons, during the previous government, sources further maintained.
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