ISLAMABAD – Senate Standing Committee on Interior has asked the Ministry of Interior to provide the record of 140,000 arms licenses issued since 2007 along with details of those issued on the recommendation of parliamentarians. “The committee has learnt a large number of arms licenses were issued on fake recommendations of the parliamentarians and their bogus letter pads were used in this regard,” Chairman of the committee Senator Talha Mahmood said in meeting of the committee held on Wednesday.
The committee also asked for the records of NADRA on 32000 illegal arms licenses.
Meanwhile, the committee was briefed by an interior secretary of the ministry of interior that there was a complete ban on the arms licenses during 2010 apart from those issued on the directives of the prime minister. The chairman raised an objection saying it was a strange ban in which the prime minister was violating his own policy.
The committee was also told that the system of arms licenses for NADRA was supplied by a man who had been providing stationary to NADRA and when no expert was found for running the system, he was asked to run it and he later transferred the data of those 32000 licenses to his laptop for issuing fake cards or licenses. He said that around 12997 licenses were forged and further investigations were underway which would be completed by a week.
The additional secretary also told the committee that Rs 6.5 million was embezzled in the process whereas the media had reported an embezzlement of Rs 10.6 million. He further said that during July 2009 around 5986 licenses were issued and they had all been cancelled. When the committee asked how many licenses were issued to foreigners, the additional secretary said that no license was issued to any foreigner this year.
The committee also asked the ministry to provide details of the promotions of the officers involved in the fake arms licenses. The committee also took notice of the absence of the secretary of interior and said that a letter would be written to chairman of the senate and if the secretary remained absent in the next meeting, the prime minister would be asked to take notice of it. The committee also decided to take up the issue of delay in issuance of new passports in the next meeting.
