Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A policy announced by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to curtail the use of automatic weapons by private individuals has been badly exposed as only seven people have got replaced their automatic weapons with semi-automatic firearms, while nobody turn up to surrendered their automatic weapons.

All seven applicants, who approached authorities concerned for conversion of their weapons belong to federal capital and not a single citizen has reached the Ministry of Interior from the provinces so far. It is pertinent to mention here that over a hundred thousand people are holding licensed automatic weapons in the country.

The policy was a brain child of premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who had announced in his very first speech in National Assembly that the government would seize all automatic weapons and compensate them in return to end the use of automatic weapons in the country.

The federal cabinet had also approved the suspension of all automatic arms licences issued in past.

On November 7, 2017, the Ministry of Interior issued a notification directing people to surrender their automatic weapons before district police officers (DPOs) against a monetary compensation of Rs 50,000 or convert the same into semi-automatic until January 15, 2018. Later the deadline was extended until January 31.

Yasir Shakeel, the public relation officer of the Ministry of Interior, while responding to the issue, said that there was no plan at the movement to extend the deadline.

When asked if the government would launch a crackdown to seize automatic weapons after the expiry of the deadline, he said: “It is a policy level issue and I will respond after consulting the interior minister.”

Meanwhile, citizen holding arms licences were of the view that the said policy was ill-conceived and poorly implemented.

A licence holder, requesting anonymity, criticised the announced compensation citing it totally “irrational”. “I bought a Russian-made AK-47 automatic gun for Rs 180,000 and also got my licence by bribing the officials,” he said and questioned: “How I can surrender the gun against a monetary compensation of just Rs 50,000?”

The policy also received flak from parliamentarians as Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Chairman Mahmood Khan Achakzai in his recent speech in National Assembly demanded to revisit the policy.

Meanwhile, some people also approached the courts and obtained stay orders but the sources inside the Interior Ministry said that they had not received the copy of court orders.”Though the Peshawar High Court had passed a restraining order, it was confined to petitioners only and have no impact on the decision,” an official said.

Published in Daily Times, January 31^st 2018.