Sindh cancels 0.6m unverified arms licences

Karachi
The Sindh chief minister on Wednesday cancelled 595,146 arms licenses issued across the province because the licensees failed to verify their documents from the offices of deputy commissioners concerned through the computerisation and revalidation system of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
Syed Qaim Ali Shah took the policy decision while presiding over a meeting of the Sindh cabinet at the CM house.
In his briefing during the meeting, home secretary Mukhtiar Soomro said a total of 1057,456 arms licenses had been issued in the province for which the verification process was conducted.
He said so far the government had received 462,310 verification applications, and out of them 56,891 licenses had been verified by Nadra.
He said some 184,750 licenses were pending with Nadra, while 272,510 others were waiting to be processed by the offices of deputy commissioners concerned.
Speaking at the meeting, the chief minister said the figures presented by the home secretary reflected that around 595,146 licensees had not applied for verification. The cut off date for verification was May 19 and it had passed now. “Therefore, I hereby announce to cancel their licenses from this day,” the chief minister decided.
The home minister also apprised the chief minister about 457 operations carried out by the Sindh Rangers during which 293 culprits of banned organisations and had also recovered 350 weapons and 15,092 pieces of ammunition from them.
He said the Rangers were also participating in the operation in Ghotki against dacoits. “In joint actions, the police and Rangers have arrested 23 suspects,” said Soomro.
The chief minister while appreciating the efforts of police and Rangers directed the home secretary to coordinate with the law-enforcement agencies to clear the kutcha areas of Ghotki, Sukkur and Kandhkot-Kashmore districts.
Moreover, Soomro said according to the figures dating back to 2005, there were around 135,734 Afghan refugees in Karachi and out of them 92,646 were registered. He said until May 2015, 33,468 Afghanis had been repatriated.

Law and order
In his briefing at the meeting, the Sindh IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali recapped the major incidents of terrorism in Sindh and apprised about the progress in their investigations.
He said the Sindh Police had worked day and night to arrest the four culprits involved in the Safoora bus attack and the murder of social activist Sabeen Mahmud.
He said the force was highly thankful to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif and Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for appreciating their performance because it boosted the morale of officers.
He said the same suspects — Tahir Husain Minhas alias Sain alias Zahid alias Naveed alias Khalil alias Shaukat alias Mota s/o Khadim Hussain Minhas; Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin alias John alias Aziz Shaikh; Mohammmad Azhar Ishrat alias Maajid son of Ishrat; and Haafiz Naasir Ahmed alias Yaasir son of Afzal — had also confessed to their involvement in the attack on US professor Deborah Lobo, magnet bomb attack on navy personnel in Dalmia, suicide blast on Rangers men, grenade attack on schools, bomb attack on a Bohri mosque and others on police personnel in Karachi and Hyderabad.
Talking about the Sindh High Court incident of May 23, Jamali said former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza had appeared in the anti-terrorism court for the confirmation of his bail. He said Zulfiqar was accompanied by a number of vehicles and plain-clothed personnel carrying sophisticated weapons. He said these people tried to enter the high court premises and were stopped and arrested by the police.
Giving statistics pertaining to crime in the city, Jamali said from January to May 26, 2014, some 1,707 murder cases had been registered while in the same period of 2015, 830 murders were registered by the police.
In the same period of 2014, 31 kidnapping cases were reported but in 2015 they dropped to seven in 2015.
Moreover, 13 terrorism cases were reported in the corresponding period in 2014 but this year the number is at five cases.
Besides, he said, there were 214 extortion cases between January and May in 2014 but the number decreased to 111 cases in 2015.
Similarly, last year there were 1,345 cases of robbery which reduced to 319 in the corresponding period in 2015.
Jamali also told the meeting that so far this year, the law-enforcement agencies had arrested 127 terrorists belonging to Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. Around 53 target killers died in police encounters while 54 more arrested and 16 kidnappers were killed in encounters and 10 more were arrested.

Wheat procurement
The Sindh food minister Gyanchand Essrani said his department had bought 854,986 tons of wheat till May 26.
“By the end of this month the initial target of 900,000 tons will be reached while the additional target of 200,000 tons will be achieved by June,” he said. He said 697,000 tons were leftover from last year’s procurement while a total of 1,100,000 tons would be bought this year.
He said after supplying 1,100,000 tons of flour to mills and chakkis and 100,000 to Thar, there would be a surplus of 597,000 tons of wheat in the province. The chief minister directed the food minster to ensure proper storage of wheat so that the wheat stock is not destroyed by the upcoming rains.

Finances
Finance minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in his briefing said in order to mobilise the available resources and improving public and financial management, the provincial government had entered into an agreement with the World Bank and initiated the Sindh Public Sector Management Reform Project.
Under the project, a budget strategy paper “Transparency in budget formulation, allocation and execution” will be prepared.
The minister said that the finance department too, in coordination with the provincial planning and development department, had prepared a budget strategy paper for the financial year 2015-16.
He said the main themes covered by the papers included government policies, priorities, strategic allocations of resources and key macro-economic assumptions over the medium term framework.
He said the net receipts for 2013-2013 and 2013-14 were at Rs469 billion and Rs510 billion, respectively, against budget estimates of Rs570 billion and Rs595 billion, respectively, showing a difference of 17.76 percent in 2012-13 and 14.37 percent in 2013-14.
The finance minister said the differences could be attributed to the shortfall in federal transfers, provincial receipts, federal development grants and foreign-assisted projects.
According to him, the sluggish economic growth rate, inefficiencies in tax administration and collection, ban on disposal of government land and delay in execution of donor funded projects were the main reasons for not achieving the target receipts from the province.
He said revenue from the federal divisible pool, straight transfers and grants constituted 80 percent of total current revenue receipts in 2012-13 and 82 percent in 2013-14. The revised estimates of revenue transfers from federal divisible pool, straight transfer and grants for current financial year amounted to 81 percent of the current revenue estimates against budget estimates of 79 percent.
The finance minister said the government was trying to reduce its dependence on federal receipts and was focusing on improving its own resources through the Sindh Tax Revenue Mobilisation Plan with an aim to reduce its share of federal transfers from 81 percent at present to 78.7 percent by the year 2017-18.