June 07, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1427

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NOWSHERA, June 6: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested six people on charges of forging arms licences. Official sources said that the NAB had also launched a crackdown in other districts of the NWFP where arms licences were being issued.

They said that NAB teams had also conducted raids in Peshawar, Lakki Marwat, Mardan, Charsadda, Malakand and Kohat on receiving complaints about issuance of fake arms licences.

The sources said that the NAB team, aided by Nowshera police commandos, arrested licence clerk Inam Khan of the DCO office and took the record of the licence branch into custody.

Later, the team raided an arms shop in the Nowshera cantonment area and arrested its owner Abdul Wali and his assistant Fazal Rahim.

Another arms dealer, Mohammad Ali, was arrested during a raid on his house in the Badrashi area, while his assistant Mohammad Fayyaz was held when he was trying to flee from the arms shop.

The team also recovered copies of arms licences and fake stamps from the shop.

The arrested people were first taken to the Cantonment police station from where they were shifted to an undisclosed place for interrogation.

Our correspondent from Lakki Marwat adds: The National Accountability Bureau arrested a licence clerk at the office of the DCO, Rashid Khan, and seized the relevant record.

Reliable sources said the clerk had been holding the post of licence clerk since the declaration of Lakki Marwat as a district in 1992.

“The arrested employee has been accused of committing irregularities, malpractices and causing losses to government exchequer during the process of issuing weapons’ licences and maintenance of other record,” said the sources, adding that NAB officials had collected information about issuance of fake arms’ licences and misappropriation of licence fee.

They said a special team of NAB, headed by deputy director Mr Imran, had carried out the operation.

“The NAB team arrested Rashid Khan from his house and sealed his office situated in the district headquarters complex near Tajazai after seizing the record of weapons’ licences,” the sources said. They said that the arrested clerk and the seized record had been sent to Peshawar.