Arms dealers’ monitoring now part of DCs’ duties in Punjab

LAHORE: The Punjab Home Department has included regular monitoring of arms dealers in the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), created for transfer or posting of all deputy commissioners (DC) appointed in the province.

Instructions have been issued to the Home Department, I&C Wing of the Chief Secretary, which evaluates the performance of deputy commissioners, after recommendation of the committee to investigate illegal arms trade in Punjab. The Home Department said the performance of all DCs should also be evaluated on the basis of whether they regularly checked arms dealers in their districts through the software developed by the Punjab Home Department to monitor them. Whether the monthly verification report of any illegal activity, violation of law or arms dealers has been sent to the Home Department or not.

The Punjab Home Department has also issued orders to the Lahore deputy commissioner to conduct a comprehensive forensic audit of the Arms Branch at the DC office, so as to catch the government employees and their ring leaders facilitating arms dealers trading in illegal arms in the city.

When contacted, Home Secretary Punjab Noorul Amin Mengal said the transfer and posting of deputy commissioners in future should also be done on the basis of whether they found someone involved in illegal arms trade in their districts. If they did so, what action was taken against him.

Mengal said instructions had been issued to all deputy commissioners that the staff posted to the arms branches of DC offices would remain there for a maximum of one year, after which they would be transferred and not posted again to the arms branch under the rotation policy. He said the same transfer policy would be implemented in the wing dealing with arms dealers and licences and all staff would be changed after one year.

The home secretary said employees of the arms branch of the DC Lahore office had allegedly been found involved in issuing bogus licences to dealers involved in illegal trade of arms and tampering with the record. Strict legal action would be taken against those employees and dealers, he announced.