Interior Ministry denies suspending licenses of prohibited bore weapons

The Ministry of Interior has denied issuance of any notification regarding the suspension of licenses of prohibited bore weapons, Radio Pakistan reported.

In a statement issued on Monday, the ministry clarified that the matter of regulating arms, especially automatic arms, in the country is still under consideration while terming the notification over arms licenses circulating in social media fake.

It further said the media will be duly informed regarding any progress on the matter, as separate policies were being made for allowed and restricted arms.

INP, a news agency, quoted sources as saying that the final approval of the arms license policy would be given by the prime minister following its approval by the federal cabinet.

It may be mentioned here that the last date for getting the restricted bore arms licenses computerised is December 30, 2017.

After completing the verification of 137,000 arms licenses in February 2016 the ministry had declared 8,400 of them fake and issued directions for registering cases against the holders of bogus arms licenses. The ministry had also cancelled 170,000 arms licenses for failure to get registered with NADRA during the prescribed time.

On October 31, 2017, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had directed the Interior Ministry to work out a comprehensive policy on issuance of arms licenses so as to make the process more convenient and applicant friendly. The prime minister had also issued the direction during a briefing on automatic arms licenses held under his chairmanship in Islamabad the same day.

He had directed the ministry to bring the issue of regulation of arms licenses for the automatic weapons before the next meeting of the cabinet and had also directed that the arms licenses should be linked with CNIC database of NADRA.

The interior secretary briefed the prime minister about the overall situation regarding the number of arms licenses issued by the federal as well as the provincial governments.

The meeting was informed that 19,143 prohibited bore arms licenses were issued during the period 2010-2012. The secretary further said that during the interim period of 2013, a total of 25,789 licenses were issued for the prohibited bore weapons.