December 04, 2006	Monday	Ziqa'ad 12, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: After computerising passports and driving licences, the government is introducing Computerised Arms Licence (CAL) to check misuse of weapons and keep complete data of licence holders, Dawn learnt on Sunday.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao will inaugurate the new system on Monday in association with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).

Old licences would also be computerised at the time of their renewal. Therefore, all manually issued old arms licences would remain valid till their expiry date, ministry sources said.

Most of the non-prohibited arms licences are acquired for hunting and self-defence. However, the ministry would not be able to keep computerised record of those who have prohibited bore weapons until their old licences are expired.

So far the interior ministry has issued about 15,000 non- prohibited bore arms licences, valid for use anywhere in the country. Some 8,500 of them were for 30 and 32 bore pistols which are used for self defence, about 4,700 for 12 bore guns and over 1,800 for shot guns and repeaters.

“It is difficult to tell the exact number of prohibited bore arms licences due to unavailability of complete data but their number is believed to be quite thin,” the sources said.

Licences for the prohibited bore arms are issued only by the Prime Minister Secretariat.

“The computerised arms licences will be similar to the driving licences being issued in the capital and these will carry the name of the holder, his/her national identity card number and arm number,” a senior official of the ministry said.

At present, an arm licence is issued for Rs2,500 and it remains valid for one year while the computerised licences would remain valid for three years after which they could be renewed for another three years. The official said there would be no increase in the fee for computerised licence.

Nadra has already established a Computerised Arms Licence Centre (CALC) in the interior ministry which would start function from Monday.

Nadra has laid down similar procedure as followed in issuing Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) and Machine Readable Passports (MRPs). Arms licence seekers will have to visit the CALC in person so that their photographs and thumb impressions could be obtained.

The official said it had not been decided whether such centres would be established at the provincial level or not. However, as a pilot project computerised arms licences would be issued only from Islamabad, which would be valid throughout the country.

People living in different cities would have to get prior no objection certificates from the respective district coordination officers to apply for computerised arm licence. When contacted, a spokesman for Nadra said the authority had made the software for computerisation of arms licences and it had been handed over to the interior ministry. However, the computerisation of arms licences would not be linked to the authority’s database.