LAHORE: The All Pakistan Arms and Ammunition Dealers Association have accused the Punjab police of victimizing arms dealers in Lahore by seizing their valuables and portraying them as ‘terrorists’ before the media.
The allegation came after the Punjab police under the leadership of Capital City Police Officer Ghulam Mehmood Dogar launched an aggressive operation against anti-social elements including land grabbers, illegal weapon dealers, proclaimed offenders and wanted persons.
While addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club (LPC) on Wednesday, Advocate Sheikh Mushtaq Hussain, the Association’s Chairman, accused the provincial police of “unjustifiably” picking up arms and ammunition dealers and seizing their weapons in Lahore.
“We are not law breakers; we are as much traders/businessmen as others,” he said, adding that arms dealers inherited businesses from their ancestors and running for decades but now the police are rounding them up arguing they are working illegally (without obtaining licence).
The advocate pointed out that for the last eight years the Punjab government had not issued any new (weapon) licence and there are almost 800,000 manual licences waiting for computerization by the home department. “It is very unjustified that licence fee in Lahore is Rs50,000 while merely Rs5,000 is charged in rest of Punjab,” he regretted.
He said police are illegally raiding their business places, seizing their arms and ammunition and not letting them avail the Constitutional opportunity of “Superdari” (interim disposal) for clearance for the valuables. “Instead, police by declaring our arms and ammunition illegal portraying us before the media as terrorists,” he alleged.
“Weapons licences are being issued in all other provinces of the country except Punjab,” he said and demanded of the Punjab Chief Minister to take notice of police’s alleged victimization and direct the home department to clear the backlog of pending computerized licences and lift ban on the issuance of new ones.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021