GUJRAT: Law enforcement agencies and the district government launched a joint operation to verify at least 100,000 arms licences in the district.

The authorities also issued a weeklong deadline to holders of at least 13,000 fake licences to surrender them as well as the weapons to the nearest police station otherwise criminal cases would be initiated against them.

The operation is being launched in the wake of the security situation in the region as intelligence reports suggest possibility of the presence of militants as well as a huge cache of arms in Gujrat district.

The fake licences were issued by officials of arms licensing branch of the DCO office in 2009 and 2010.

The district government detected this in 2010 and a case was registered against the officials concerned that had caused a loss of at least Rs70 million to the national exchequer.

Previously, the district government had made many attempts to recover fake licences but to no avail, as some holders had filed petitions against licence cancellation orders of the district government in court.

A meeting of law enforcement agencies and officials of the district government decided to strictly deal with the elements possessing illegal arms besides collecting the record of licenced weapons. According to a rough estimate by the agencies, there are over 100,000 licences issued to residents of Gujrat from federal, provincial and district governments.

A district government official told Dawn there was a general perception at the official level that 13,000 fake licence holders were exploiting the situation and most of them were held by criminal and rogue elements.

District Coordination Officer Liaquat Ali Chattha while talking to Dawn said he had issued instructions to the department concerned to advertise in newspapers announcing cancellation of fake licences and a weeklong deadline to their holders to surrender them along with the weapons.

Official sources said some local PML-N leaders were pressing the administration to extend the deadline to at least 15 days.

District Police Officer Rai Ijaz Ahmed said he had ordered all police stations in the district to serve notices on every individual possessing a fake licence, whereas door-to-door verification by police stations concerned had also been ordered and that no negligence would be tolerated.

Published in Dawn, December 22th, 2014