Probe against fake arms licenses in Punjab ordered

LAHORE: The Punjab Home Department on Friday directed the deputy commissioners for immediate investigation into the business of counterfeit and illegal weapons licenses, ARY News reported.

The order has been given after reports of creation of illegal licenses in districts other than Lahore.

The Home Department has given one and a half months to the DCs for submitting a report about illegal arms licenses.

“The relevant officers should send their investigation reports by May 30,” said the provincial department in a notification pertaining to crackdown on fake weapons licenses.

It admitted that several of the licenses were issued in connivance of senior officers.

Read More: Interior ministry suspends licences for automatic weapons across country

On January 2, the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) had claimed to have arrested nine suspects involved in creating and selling counterfeit arms licenses as well as illegal weapons.

The arrested men included five arms dealers, police and Frontier Corps (FC) personnel.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) CIA Arif Haneef had said the suspects were arrested during a ‘sting operation’ from different areas in Karachi and added that weapons made in the US were also recovered from their possession.

He had said the US made weapons were smuggled from Afghanistan in Karachi. Haneef had said that a police constable Saeed Nawaz allegedly took information from the arms dealers about the buyers and passed on the details to the gang.

The counterfeiter arms licenses were being sold in Peshawar, Balochistan, erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and other areas.

The CIA officer had said that the operation was conducted on a tip-off that the suspects were involved in providing weapons to miscreants.