Friday, November 29th, 2024
Home »Top Stories » Taxpayers to be issued arms licences: Nisar

  • News Desk
  • May 11th, 2015
  • Comments Off on Taxpayers to be issued arms licences: Nisar
Minister for Interior Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan said on Sunday that unverified arms licenses would expire by end of this year and the government would not issue new licenses to persons below 25 years of age. Addressing a news conference, the Minister said that a Joint Investigation team (JIT) has completed interrogation of Moazam Ali and important progress in the Imran Farooq murder case is likely in the next two to three days.

The Minister added that arms licenses would only be issued to taxpayers after verification by NADRA and to those having genuine and serious security threats. Nisar dispelled the perception that he or his ministry has put any kind of pressure on NADRA and stated that 93,000 unverified ballots in NA-122 do not mean that polled votes were fake or bogus. He wanted election tribunal should give a shut-up call to the people making comments regarding NA-122. The Minister came hard on private security agencies as well as on three provinces for lifting ban on new arms licenses. Nisar said that in future names would be out on ECL only for one year. Interior The Minister claimed that no name would be placed on ECL on political grounds. He said that at present there are 7500 names on the ECL; and in future, he added, recommendations by investigation agencies and courts would be mandatory for placing names on ECL.

Nisar said that government is also working on a policy to regulate bullet- proof vehicles. He said that the federal government has imposed a ban on new arms licenses but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan have lifted it and now the federal government wants the provinces to devise a uniform policy with regard to ban on the new licences. The Minister said that non-taxpayers will not be issued arms licenses.

While strongly criticising private security agencies, he said that as a minister he has not issued even a single license to any security agency instead he imposed a complete ban on issuance of new licenses. He said the security agencies operating in the country have employed those people who could not even use weapons and there is no system out in place by the companies for their training. Nisar maintained that even some persons with criminal records are also working in those companies.

Chaudhry Nisar said during the re- validation of arms licenses about four thousand five hundred licenses were found fake. He said the re-validation date for the arms licenses will be 31st December this year and from January 1 2016 onwards all unverified license would stand expired. The delegations were informed that the Prime Minister had issued special instructions to extend utmost facilitation to envoys who suffered from the tragic helicopter crash of 8 May 2015.

They were assured that the Government of Pakistan was providing all possible medical facilities to the injured, and arrangements were being made to transport the mortal remains as early as possible. All the concerned departments and agencies of the Government were working day and night in this regard. The Crisis Management Cell at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was functioning round the clock to facilitate the Embassies and co-ordinate activities among various departments.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2015


the author

Top
Close
Close