The writer is a health, safety and environment consultant based in Karachi
Let us attempt to piece together some of the publicly-known facts relating to proliferation of state-sponsored gun licences in Pakistan. Punjab has finally admitted to 900,000 fake licences out of the 1.8 million that it churned out. Newspapers have revealed that 3.5 million licences issued in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are not traceable in official records. The Supreme Court’s suo-motu case 16/2011 concluded that the federal government had issued 1,202,470 licences while the Sindh government issued 400,000 during the previous five years. The former interior minister, Rehman Malik, officially confirmed issuing 69,473 licences of prohibited bore weapons to parliamentarians alone, while a Sindh minister publicly admitted to having issued 300,000 licences to his supporters.
The truth is that more than half of gun licences are not traceable to any individual. Almost 90 per cent of these were issued without any mandatory security or background checks. A gun licence is essentially an instrument of political bribe and appeasement, typically issued to those who wield power, money or influence. The rest have to pay bribes or have to employ other underhand means to obtain licences. They even resort to buying fraudulent licences, a practice often facilitated by officials and middlemen. The corruption of the system can be best understood by the fact that even Malik Ishaq, head of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, managed to receive 11 prohibited bore gun licences from the federal and provincial governments.
This greed for weapons is insatiable. There are some 20 million weapons in civilian hands. The Sindh government is promoting guns by holding shooting competitions and the Punjab government has announced reopening of licences from February onwards. Considering that we are already in the midst of a civil war, this mad race for collective suicide is completely beyond reason. Article 256 of the Constitution explicitly forbids the formation of private armies. The state has grossly violated this law by actively promoting the spread of weapons, resulting in the formation of armed outfits belonging to individuals, mafias, religious or political parties. The rulers, however, refuse to see the lethal link between weapons, violence and the war called Zarb-e-Azb. This link ought to be completely dismantled if we expect there to be any sort of peace in Pakistan in the years to come.
We need to begin by striking down the highly discretionary Arms Ordinance, which enables licences to be issued at the district level. No individual must have the authority to issue arms licences to anyone. Withdrawal of all gun licences should be announced in a phased programme for surrender of all weapons — licensed or otherwise. Tough options must be readily available for those who do not comply. No individual, regardless of rank, status, political, tribal or religious affiliation must be allowed to use, possess , carry or display any weapon or explosive of any class.
There are two huge hurdles in the path of deweaponisation: a weapon-greedy ruling elite and a government that has neither the will nor the capacity to implement such a programme. Deweaponisation is essential to victory in any war against terrorism. There may not have been any need to carry out operations in the tribal areas if we had prevented the inflow of weapons to militants. It may, therefore, be best to make deweaponisation a component and objective of the current fight against militants, in order to prevent another protracted and painful conflict. The survival of Pakistan may well be dependent on this.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2015.
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Your concerns regarding fake licenses and licenses without proper record are valid. But how can you call for cancellation of all arms licenses. It is very easy to confiscate a licensed weapon of a law abiding citizen, but who will disarm the terrorists, kidnappers, thieves, robbers, rapists and extortionists, all of whom have illegal weapons. Do you expect our government to do it even in the next 20 years? Till then, how will the people protect themselves? I heard you saying in a TV program that guns provide a false sense of security. I utterly disagree with you. A gun doesn't let you feel helpless. This sense of helplessness hurts you more than the crime itself. You have talk about discretionary approval of arms licenses. What about the discretionary rejection of applications for arms licenses, whereby people are not allowed to exercise their natural and constitutional right of self defense. This difficulty in obtaining arms licenses is the main reason behind people using underhand means for this purpose. So, the solution is an easy access to arms licenses. I respect older people but in your case, I think that you are an old man having nothing to lose now and having no responsibility to protect your family and home. People like you are responsible for rising crime in the society
I fully agree re de weaponisation of the whole country. But can / will it be implemented
A variation which may work.
Have weapons deposit/storage facilities around the country - managed by Police (can they be trusted?) or Pak Army Reserves, where weapons can be stored in secure facilities.
The people depositing the wepons must pay a nominal fee (to fund operations of these facilities).
If there ar 20m weapons, charging 100 rupees a year, will generate 2bn rupees a year.
If people want to withdraw a weapon, they need to log it, and write down purpose. Whilst in the depot, all wepaons can be logged.
Sir, toosi great ho...lakin.
Does our Politicians have the will to implement de-weaponization, when they are issuing it themselves. When the govt is very well aware that most of these licenses have no record as who is the actual owner etc; how do we go about de-weaponization ? So, respected Sir, the only way is to STOP issuing any more....
We have " State institutional " fraud, not only gun licenses. Name one state institution which is running clean ?
True analysis by my respected teacher. Govt should take a serious step to deweaponise this country. Otherwise the operations like Zarb e azb will not be fruitful.