FAISALABAD: The Anti Corruption Establishment has registered a case against six people, including a former additional deputy commissioner general (ADCG), on charges of issuing thousands of fake arms licences.

Submitting an application to the director ACE, Muhammad Munir of Madinabad alleged that ADCG Khalid Farooqa, superintendent Shahid Nadeem, Basharat Ali, Abdul Rauf, Mian Riaz and Mohammad Rizwan had off and on been issuing fake weapons licences to the people in connivance with arms dealers. He said one licence number had been issued in the name of three persons, whereas single licence number was for one weapon.

He said in 2015, a lady ADCG had prepared a CD [compact disc] of all arms licences issued by the DC office. However, after her transfer, he said the suspect had issued about 16,000 licences. The suspect had received Rs15,000 against each licence, he said adding some of the licences were issued prior to the birth of the licencee.

The applicant said fathers of some licencees were alive, however, the suspect had declared them dead only for the issuance of the licence.

He said the suspect would receive Rs5,000 as bribe for each licence.

A private person was being used for collection of the bribe money, the applicant said adding first page of the licences deposited with the DC office for computerisation had been change and used for issuance of the fake licences.

“The computerised licence data is missing from the DC office as the same has been removed,” he added.

The ACE sources said the case had been initiated after a probe and soon the suspects would be arrested.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2019