Licensing suggestions

This refers to the article, ‘Is de-weaponisation possible?’ (October 27) by Naeem Sadiq. The writer has suggested that the verification of arms licences should not be done by the issuing authority (the bureaucracy) and should be done by ‘independent people’. From where will the state of Pakistan find ‘independent’ people to verify the integrity and sanity of those who possessed licensed arms? Nadra has already been doing a great job by computerising and linking arms licences to CNICs.
The CNIC number will be regarded as the NTN as well. So, it can be used to determine how many taxpayers possess licensed arms. Moreover, licensed arm-holders have been verified by relevant district governments of Punjab. This measure should be enough to eliminate fake licences. The same procedure should be adopted by all provinces and in three years all those possessing licensed arms will be listed. As far as police verification and ‘intelligence-based search operations’ are concerned, I do not think that law-enforcement agencies have enough manpower to address this issue, especially when we are at war. And the final suggestion of the writer should have come first: our lawmakers, except those living in hostile tribal areas, should give up all prohibited bore licences.
Osama Idrees
Islamabad