In the pipeline: Arms dealers to share transaction details

The Ibis system will help forensics division keep track of licensed weapons


Our Correspondent November 25, 2014

KARACHI: The government plans to use an Integrated Ballistic Identification System (Ibis) to make it mandatory for arms dealers to share the details of each transaction, Sindh interior secretary Dr Niaz Abbasi revealed on Tuesday.

Talking to the media after visiting the forensic division of the Sindh police at the Garden Police headquarters, he said that the government intended to upgrade this division, adding that a law was in the pipeline and will be implemented soon.

"By this law, the forensic division will possess the ballistics records of every weapon issued thereafter," he explained.

"Policemen will also be assigned to collect spent bullets from weapons trials from every arms dealers, and the shells will be sent to the forensic division for record-keeping." He said that this would help investigators to probe cases, especially those involving target killings.

The Ibis was recently provided to the forensic division by the US government to enhance their ballistics identification capabilities.



Up until now, forensics experts have been compelled to undertake the lengthy process of manually matching bullet shells against their records, but the Ibis will be able to give them the top ten ballistics matches, saving time and making their job easier.

The Ibis will work for new weapons but people who already own licensed weapons will have to get them stamped by the forensics division. This will make it difficult for people to renew their licences if they are not already part of the system.

"There are thousands of unlicensed weapons in Karachi, and it is usually these weapons that are used in criminal activities," said a senior police official.

"The police will only be able to use Ibis to investigate cases for which they have weapons records."

Replying to a question, Dr Abbasi admitted the presence of corrupt policemen in the department.

"We are taking action against those policemen who are involved in crime and corruption," he claimed. "They will not be tolerated in the force."

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2014.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ