Advisor to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik has directed concerned officials of Interior Ministry to issue new arm licenses only after due verification of the applicants from Nadra and other relevant organisations. There are complaints that arm licenses are being issued to influential people without proper verification.
Malik while taking serious note of the matter directed the concerned department to make sure the verification before license is issued, sources in Interior Ministry told Business Recorder on Friday. They said that following the directives from Advisor on Interior, the Ministry has stopped receiving or entertaining new applications. People were asked to come after January 31.
Arms licenses are being issued on the recommendations of parliamentarians and there is no quota restriction in this regard and the interior ministry is issuing authority of the arms licenses. Due to security compulsions, the influential people have flooded the ministry with applications to get arm licenses, sources said.
"At present there are so many applications which cannot be processed for a long time due to which entertaining of fresh applications has been stopped till January 31", they added.
The number of licenses under process including those recommended by influential persons could not be ascertained, but the ministry said it was unable to entertain new applications till pending ones were disposed of. The ministry had already stopped issuing computerised arm licenses and new licenses were issued manually. The ministry is hopeful to clear the backlog by the end of January.