Arms licences: Verification campaign fizzles out amid low turnout

Home department forced to extend the deadline for the fifth time.


Hafeez Tunio August 23, 2014

KARACHI:


The campaign for the verification of arms licences, initiated by the home department last year, seems to have died down rather unceremoniously.


The department has been forced to extend the deadline for the fifth time, in view of the low turnout. The latest deadline for the campaign has been extended up to December 2014.

According to officials of the home department, the main reason for the extension of the deadlines is that despite setting up National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) counters at the office of every deputy commissioner, people have simply failed to show up.

"The process was started in October 2013 on the directives of the Supreme Court," said an employee at the deputy commissioner's office in Malir.

According to the home department, there are approximately one million arms licences in the province while only around 0.4 million have been verified during the last 10 months.

"It is the provincial government's responsibility to raise awareness through the media by issuing day-to-day warnings, otherwise this whole exercise will be futile," said one of the deputy commissioners, adding that people initially had to face a lot of problems due to the shortage of forms. The official believes that poor management on the part of the government may have been the contributing factor for the poor response to the drive.

The verification fee for each licence is Rs1,000. After getting the forms against the prescribed fee, the licence-holder has to go to the NADRA counter for verification of their national identity card. The NADRA officials verify the individual's particulars and then refer the case to the relevant deputy commissioner. The DC then passes on the case to the police for verification before sending it back to NADRA to make the computerised arms licence card.

For his part, NADRA Sindh chapter's director-general said that the registration body's role was limited to verification of the particulars in their database and issuing the computerised licence.

Despite the low turnout, information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon claimed to have completed 70 per cent of the work. He added that his department had advertised in newspapers and TV channels, requesting people to visit the DC offices for the purpose. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2014.

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