RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government has decided to recover the cost of misplaced, lost or stolen weapons from police officials at the present market value.

The market value of the weapons lost or misplaced by police officials has been fixed by a committee and approved by the inspector general of police (IGP), Punjab.

A police official said weapons are property of the police department and that the circumstances in which they went missing or were lost will be determined during an inquiry and penalties can include the registration of an FIR against the police official, or dismissal from service.

If the weapon was snatched by an unidentified person, responsibility will be fixed according to the circumstances, he said, adding that officials who had been using their own, private weapons which went missing or were stolen will not be facing an inquiry.

IGP Amjad Javed Saleemi, in a directive to all divisional police chiefs across the province, said that a committee has determined and fixed the amount to be recovered from all field units of police in lieu of stolen, missing or misplaced weapons according to the market rate.

The directive has been applied on all ranking police officials.

The rate for weapons in 23 categories has been approved by the competent authorities in line with the recommendation of a senior members’ committee.

The amount to be recovered from police officials for a Beretta Pistol 92-FS has been fixed at Rs360,000, that for a revolver 38-Bore Special & Simple has been fixed at Rs260,000 and Semi Machine Gun (SMG) Type 56-China 150,000.

The price for a 12-Bore Pump Action Mossberg USA had been fixed at Rs150,000, Rifle Semi-Automatic 7.62 mm China had been fixed at Rs130,000 while the price for a local made 12-Bore Pump Action and the price for MG-3 with accessories had been fixed at Rs338,000.

Losing or misplacing a bullet proof jacket will cost Rs90,000 and bullet proof helmet will cost Rs25,000. Losing a G3A3 with accessories will cost Rs135,000, G3P4 with accessories will cost Rs150,000.

Misplacing or missing a Rifle 22-BoreWinchester Model-67 will cost Rs135,000, magazine G-3 will cost Rs10,00, Magazine MP-5 will cost Rs8,000 Magazine Beretta Pistol will cost Rs12,000, magazine AUG-Rifle Rs30,000 and magazine of SMG (china) will cost Rs5,000.

The penalty for losing Ammo 9mm for pistol has been fixed at Rs150 and the same amount has been fixed for Ammo for MPSA2.

Several police weapons, wireless sets and anti-riot equipment had been reported missing or stolen in the past and cases were registered against police officials.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2019