Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah taking policy decision in the cabinet meeting has cancelled 595,146 arms license because the licensees failed to verify their licenses from the concerned offices.
This decision he took while presiding over the cabinet meeting here at CM House today.
Home Secretary Mukhtiar Soomro briefing the cabinet said that there were 1057,456 arms licenses in the province for which verification process was started. So far the government has received 462,310 license verification applications, of them 56,891 licenses have been verified while Nadra 184,750 licenses are pending with NADRA and 272,510 licenses are pending with concerned deputy commissioners.
The chief minister said that the figures presented by the home secretary showed that 559,146 licensees did not apply for the verification. The cut of date for verification was May 19, 2015, and it has passed now. “Therefore, I hereby decided to cancel their licenses from this day,” he decided.
He said Pakistan Rangers in their 457 operations arrested 293 culprits of banned organisation and recovered 350 weapons and 15,092 ammunitions. On this, the chief minister appreciated the efforts of Pakistan Rangers.
The home secretary said that Pakistan Rangers was also participating in Ghotki operation being carried out against dacoits. “The police and Rangers have arrested 23 suspects.” The chief minister directed the home secretary to coordinate with police and rangers to clear the katcha area of Ghotki, Sukkur and Kandhkot-Kashmore of dacoits.
Mukhtiar Soomro said according to the census of 2005, there were 1,35,734 Afghan refugees in Karachi and 92,646 of them were registered, and upto May 2015 some 33,468 Afghanis have been repatriated.