Illegal arms: K-P home department to crackdown on ‘dormant’ factories

About ten ‘dormant’ arms factories are supplying arms in K-P.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Home and Tribal Affairs Department has been planning to take action against illegal arms dealers running factories in the province. According to home department officials, the department has received information about ten ‘dormant’ arms factories which are supplying arms in K-P.

Talking to The Express Tribune, the officials informed that three sorts of factories were categorised as dormant. The first kind comprises rented factories, where either the licence holder rents his licence to the building or property owner to run the factory or vice versa.

The second kind involves three parties; the licence holder, the property owner and the contractor who runs the factory.

“The contractor owns the business and pays rent to both the licence holder and the property owner on a monthly basis,” the officials revealed.

The third type of dormant factories are ‘ghost factories’. Arms are supplied as products of the factory but are manufactured in Darra Adam Khel, a militancy-hit area of frontier region Kohat.

“When you enter the factory you will see the building, the licence and even a workforce, but the arms themselves are never produced inside the factory...  (they are) smuggled from Darra Adam Khel,” they said.

The officials told The Express Tribune that that there were five such factories functioning last week. Their number has now increased to 10.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2012.