Federal Interior Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, Home Minister of Balochistan, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, Director General Projects NADRA, Zulfiqar Ali, Director General Quetta and other senior official of provincial government were present on the occasion.
The signing of MoU is the achievement of major milestone which is the result of the concerted efforts of the Federal Interior Minister, Professor Ahsan Iqbal and Home Minister of Balochistan, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti. The Government of Pakistan hopes to reap similar successes achieved in Punjab, Sindh and the Federal Arms License Projects through computerization of 0.3 million manual licenses in Balochistan.
Similar to the arms license computerization projects that have been implemented across Sindh and Punjab provinces, the move will help to promote a more secure and effective management and monitoring of private arms in the country. According to the MoU, 34 sites shall be established by NADRA across various districts in the Balochistan province, where citizens who have old manual licenses can visit these facilities to firstly validate and then be issued computerized licenses for their weapons through the proper legal channels.
To highlight some past success of the Arms License Project, since the arms license revalidation campaign ended in December 2015, total 180,000 arms licenses were computerized and revalidated whilst around 8,000 licenses were found to be bogus during the campaign.
Copyright News Network International, 2017