LAHORE: The Punjab government has unearthed a scam of issuing hundreds of fake, forged and illegal arms licences from the DC office, Lahore, involving millions of rupees.

As a fact-finding committee has identified five officials of the DC office as accused, the Punjab Home Department has asked the IGP and the NAB director-general to take action against the accused.

The officials found involved in tampering with record and approving fake manual arms licences are: office superintendent Iqbal Husain Shah, head clerk Safdar Ahmed and junior clerks Waqar Ali, Rizwan Shah and Sohail Aslam.

The fact-finding committee constituted by the home department examined the record necessary for the approval of arms licences and found out that hundreds of fake licences were issued involving millions of rupees by the five officials.

The committee stated the accused defrauded government by causing huge loss of the government taxes to be paid in different shapes for issuance of arms licences by fabricating documents to defraud the public at large.

The home department asked NAB that an inquiry/ investigation under the NAB Ordinance of 1999 may be initiated against the accused. It nominated its deputy secretary to keep liaison with NAB.

The department also asked the IGP to proceed against the culprits and communicate details of actions taken and FIRs registered.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2019