Weapon licenses issued in big numbers in K-P since PTI reign

As many as 161,441 arms licenses have been issued across 25 districts of K-P since PTI assumed power

PESHAWAR: As many as 161,441 arms licenses have been issued across 25 district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) since Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government assumed power after the May 2013 general elections.

The Home and Tribal Affairs department expressed its inability to produce names of license holders and other details, saying producing a single copy of this data would cost Rs 163,000 and production of 250 sets of data for the K-P assembly would cost the department a whopping Rs40 million.

The statement comes after Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) lawmaker Sobia Shahid said that the tribal affairs department does not issue individual licenses; rather, deputy commissioners issue licenses of non-prohibited weapons.

The department said that it was ready to show the data to the member in case she was interested.

District wise details
District wise breakup for the province shows that the most number of licenses, were issued in Bannu district, coming up to about 66,000, followed by Peshawar with 11,642 licenses.
Kohat came in third with 8,009 licenses.

District wise numbers show that Mardan had 7,721, Swat 6,452, Karak 5,584, Charsadda 5,285, Swabi 5,705, Dir Lower 5,380 and Manshera had 4,566 licenses issued.

Malakand got 3,218 arms' licenses, Dera Ismail Khan 2,836, Battagram 1,541, Abbotabad 3471, Nowshera 2,429, Kohistan 1,103, Haripur 4,221, Torghar 1,263, Lakki Marwat  3,679, Shangla 2,902, Tank 2,485, Hangu 1,763 and Buner got 2,883 licenses.
Chitral and Upper Dir stood at the bottom of the list with 213 and 970 arms license issued during the period.