Gun control: City government targets arms dealers over fake gun licences

800 fake licences confiscated over five months.


Rameez Khan October 19, 2012

LAHORE:


The city district government is to launch a crackdown on weapons dealers who have been getting fake gun licences made for their clients, The Express Tribune has learnt.


The Licence Branch at the office of the district coordination officer (DCO) has confiscated 800 fake licences in the last five months, said Tariq Zaman, the staff officer to the DCO. The licences had been handed in voluntarily by the owners, who had been seeking to verify that they were valid.

He said that a crackdown would soon be lodged against agents or weapon dealers involved in preparing or obtaining fake licences. He said that they had previously been confiscating fake licences only, but would now be lodging FIRs against the makers and holders of the licences.

Officials in the DCO’s office said that under the rules, a new gun licence costs around Rs5,000 and the process must be initiated by the licence seekers themselves. The licence is supposed to be ready in 45 days, but applicants usually have to wait around three months.

An official in the DCO’s office, speaking on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said that the fake licence holders had claimed that they had obtained the licences through their arms dealers. Most of them had paid Rs20,000 to Rs25,000 for the licences and had received them in a week. They said that they had approached the DCO’s office for confirmation that the licences were genuine.

The source said that DCO Noorul Amin Mengal had ordered officials to investigate the issuance of arms licences and had also written to the police on the subject. He said it was possible that police personnel or officials of the Licence Branch were involved.

The source said that the arms licences were like the licences issued by the city government until July 2010, when it introduced a computerised licence.

He said that the city government could issue a maximum of 150 licences a month and had issued a total of 4,000 computerised licences. He said that the old licences issued manually before 2010 were still valid and being renewed.

Zaman said that any old format licence sent to the DCO’s office for renewal was being sent to the General Post Office for verification that it was genuine. He said that a list of dealers whose clients had been turning up with fake licences had been prepared. He said that licence seekers were also culpable. “To save time and bypass official procedure, they are spending four to five times the fee,” he said.

Applicants for weapon licences must first get a form, fill it out and get a picture taken at the Licence Branch. The form must be signed by the DCO, or the official assigned the task by the DCO. The form is then sent to the capital city police officer’s office, which returns the application to the DCO. The file is then sent to the Pakistan Security Printing Press, Karachi, where the licence is made.

The new computerised licence includes a special watermark that makes it very difficult to forge.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2012.

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