Adil Najam
Even as violence of all forms spirals all over the country and even as, in the wake of the recent violence in there, politicians from all parties call for Karachi to be declared a “weapons free” zone (rightly!), it turns out that politicians and parliamentarians from all parties are busy distributing licenses for all forms of prohibited weapons as if these were kids candy.
Equating social prestige with possession of weapons – especially the most lethal, more prohibited, and sometimes outright illegal ones – has always been an absurd idea, but it is absolutely indefensible under the current conditions of rampant and widespread violence.
Yet, giving licenses for prohibited – or difficult to possess – weapons has always been a cheap and easy ‘give away’ for politicians and bureaucrats. In a society where all politics is transactional, a license for a prohibited weapon is an “easy ask” and an “easy giveaway.” Those receiving the “favor” feel privileged and can show off their importance because they are now demonstrably “above the law.” Those doling out the “favor” can justify to themselves that one more weapon in a society so weaponized already will make scant difference.
Indeed, one more weapon might not make a difference; but tens of thousands certainly do. And that is exactly what parliamentarians have been doling out, often with the direct approval of the Prime Minister. If we are at all sincere in stopping the violence, not just in Karachi but all over the country, then this culture of violence and the glorification of violence and of the tools of violence must stop. Of course, it will not stop just because the Prime Minister will say so. But the Prime Minister must set the example, and must do so visibly and honestly. He can do so, at the very least, by stopping the issuance of all licenses for all prohibited weapons. For everyone. Altogether. They are, after all, prohibited weapons!
To give context to all of the above, here is what The News reports:
Since the last week of March 2008, more than 38,800 people have been issued licences of prohibited weapons such as Kalashnikov, MP5, G3 and Uzi, mostly on direct orders of the prime minister and minister of state for interior. Most alarmingly, these licences were issued without any police verification or an official check on the background of the applicants, according to an investigation by this correspondent. A whopping 100,000 licences of non-prohibited bore weapons, such as revolvers and pistols, were also issued without any police verification whatsoever during the same 21-month period.
This issue gets directly linked to parliamentarians and the Prime Minister because the issuance of such licenses is still seen as a parliamentary “perk.” The same report from The News continues:
There is no formal or official procedure in the country for a common Pakistani to properly apply for a prohibited bore weapon license other than finding a member of the National Assembly or the Senate having direct connections with the prime minister or minister of state for interior for the approval of license, hence prohibited bore licenses are a precious commodity and arms dealers charge a premium of up to Rs 200,000 for such a license.
Sources in arms dealers’ community estimate liberal issuance of prohibited and non-prohibited weapons licences by the government since April 2008 has generated Rs 20 billion business for weapons dealers in sale of automatic, semi-automatic weapons in addition to massive earnings in selling the prohibited and non-prohibited licences of weapons. The situation also raised serious questions about the exact source of weapon supplies to arms dealers. Massive monetary attraction, besides other reasons, may have contributed to immense pressure on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from parliamentarians to favour them with his special powers to issue licences for all sorts of weapons.
As parliamentarians pressed the prime minister for more and more licences, [the Prime Minister] introduced an unprecedented quota of weapons licences in September last year by allowing 25 licences per year of prohibited weapons and 20 licences per month of non-prohibited weapons for each member of the National Assembly and the Senate. He extended the favour to MPAs also by allotting them five prohibited weapons licenses per year. Since March 2008 till June 2009, the prime minister ordered issuance of 22,541 licences of prohibited weapons, mostly making orders on plain papers with certain names scribbled on them presented to him by various MNAs and senators.
In recent months,the issue of such licenses took an unsurprising turn for the worse. Again, The News reports:
In two months after assuming the office of minister of state for interior in April 2009, Tasnim Ahmed Qureshi issued a record 5,986 licences of prohibited weapons, including more than 100 licences that ended up at the Inter Risk (Pvt) Ltd, the security company contracted by the United States Embassy in Pakistan. Inter Risk owners are now facing prosecution for possessing a large cache of illegal weapons. Qadir Nawaz, the personal secretary of the minister of state for interior, was arrested in the case, while the issuance of about 6,000 prohibited weapons licences in just two months on the direct order of the minister of state is still being probed by the relevant agencies. This incident caused uproar in the government security services about the scale of corruption and security risks in weapons license system. The prime minister, though rejected allegations of ministerial level involvement in the weapons scam, announced a ban on issuance of licences in June last year.
The News report ends by quoting an unnamed interior ministry official: “If parliament believes in accountability, justice and fair play, it should allow a neutral and thorough probe into the prohibited weapons license case and examine who were those 39,000 people whose names were recommended by various senators and MNAs for Kalashnikovs and Uzis licences as well as those 100,000-plus people who received licences for pistols and revolvers.â€
The quote, or the interior ministry official, may or may not be a real one, but the sentiment in the quote is right on!
So, Mr. Prime Minister, please stop issuing these licenses.
@HMD and Rashid Hassan
I am inclined to agree totally with you. The right to defend oneself by the citizens raises some fundamental questions about the duties and responsibilities of the state and the government. What the state of Pakistan and its institutions are doing today? It is pathetically idiotic. The coercive organs of the state whose duty it is to protect the life and property of its citizens are raising barricades and re-routing the traffic to protect themselves, callously adding inconvenience to the movement of the citizens. As for the protection of its citizens it has nothing to do but to impose ban on’ double-sawaari’ on the poor motor-cyclists and to use grant of arms licenses just as a political bribery. One can go to the interior ministry with an application for an arms’ licenseand see how good governance ‘ki dhajiaan urhaai jaa rahi hein wahaan’. All office-procedure is running upside down; your application would not even be received by the reception unless it is allowed so first by the Minister of Interior.
But is there a license for the suicide-jacket? Yahi umang he logon ki aaj. They would earn a lot of revenue by prescribing one, besides other benefits like reduction in poverty and population, etc., etc..
There is the type of ‘redneck’ guy who “enjoys” making up for his own deficiencies and insecurities by parading with oversized weapons, firing needlessly at basant, weddings, graduation or whatever and who needs to validate his ‘manhood’ by the borrowed glory of weaponry. Our affluent classes have, unfortunately, too many such rednecks trying to ‘compensate’ through these weapons. Also, as you rightly point out since such creatures often have little to show by way of their acheivement, getting an otherwise illegal weapon through a license via their contacts is itself their great achievement in life.
These types will always make excuses but these are only excuses for their own inadequacies. This type will never get the point. They will make excuses about how guns themselves are not the problem and other dribble that right wing nuts in the US and on Fox News also make. They do not understand, no matter how clearly the case is made, that the point is NOT that reducing the availability of guns will totally solve the problem, the point is that not doing so will only aggravate the problem further and make a bad situation worse.
Beyond that, as the post says, these weapons are ILLEGAL. That is the whole point. No one needs or should need these outrageous weapons, unless they themselves are outrageous.
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “Well said, sir. This culture of violence has destroyed the country. It must be stopped. Only idiots and killers glorify violence.”
– “but Who will take the weapons frm american diplomats in our country”
– “60,000 arms liecences issued in Sindh alone in 2009………insane”
– “Lets first start taking them away from those that we can… lets not make the Americans an excuse for everything. They do what they do because we let them and because we are ourselves rotten and only good at making excuses and pointing fingers. Lets first clean our own house… otherwise its just bahana baazi.”
– “Weapon import karna prob nai hey country mein…. problem is to take back the weapon… enemies can very easily send weapon in the country.. think some other solution plz”
– “People will buy weapons legally or otherwise as long as our law enforcement agencies are as ineffective, incompetent and corrupt as they are.”
– ” i think govt is getting lots of revinew as heavy fees of Licenses and the weapons also register legally but key thing is every one must allowd to get the license ….not few ppl…”
– “Giving everyone a license is a stupid idea… there are too many guns and too much killing in the country anyhow…. we have to be strict and take away all weapons from everyone.”
– “off course bcoz of the day by day increasing insecurity among people… first we have to tamed law enforcement department then the next step will be of disarmament..”
– “yoyoyo,,,, weapons are not the problem, the problem is, who so ever get a weapon, he just thnk dat he is everithing, if a gun is licenced, uska koi dar nai hona chaie, cuz legaal he, or jo insaan legal gun rakhta he, vo kabi b koi aisa crime nai karta, jis main vo phass jai, parr haan illegal guns ko khatum karna chie, cuz jo crime un guns se hota he usay pakarna mushkil hota he, so the main problem is thinking,”
– “Yar, license should be open for law abiding citizens. Its a pity,its so easy to get an illegal weapon. And a huge hassle to get it legally. People who are involved in illegal activities can get weapons easily,why stop law abiding citizens who want to use it for self defense..Why restrict licenses to a few who issue them to people at their own discretion..”
– “very gud”
– “this is the most duffer PM in pakistan history, he has no mind at all. stupid, we are already facing menace of terrorism and he is issueing licences”
– “very good we must have to do something against this problem”
– “try to identify the basic problem . reduction of crime rate can be reduced by providing justice environment n education n better employment opportunities….”
– “there r too many illegal weapons. stopping weapon licensee solves nothing.”
– “I can’t understand the logic (or lack of logic) of these comments. So, because we have other problems therefore we should not solve this one. Wah bhai wah! Yes, there are illegal guns but that does not mean that you arm every idiot to become a vigalante. Lets crack down on these liscenses and then we will know that whoever has any weapon is illegal and it will be easier to identify them. When you face a big problem or many many problems, then the answer is not waiting for every other problem to be solved first. You start with whatever you can tackle and then go down the list and clean all the mess. UNFORTUNATELY, part of the mess is that too many people don’t really want to do anything, just talk and leave silly comments!”
HMD,
So very well said! I completely agree with you. Only if I can write as concisely as you do.
Thanks
Rashid
Adil,
I appreciate the motivation behind this article, but I think you are confusing a couple of related matters.
There is no doubt that violence in Pakistani society is on rise and sane efforts to promote justice and peace must be encouraged. However, how declaring Karachi, or any other part of the country, “gun-free” can be helpful?
Do you think all the dacoits, bandits, talibans, etc. will all of a sudden lay down their weapons just because of the awesomeness of this edict? There are already very harsh penalties in the book against illegal weapon ownership. I dont see how those have discouraged any miscreant from owning and using weapons. What we need is better policing so that criminals can be caught and brought to justice. Not utopian ideas that will not do anything else except make the job of criminals easier.
The logical fallicy here, that many otherwise rational people seem to make, is the idea that more restrictions on civilian gun-ownership will bring down violence and crime. Criminals don’t need govt-issued licenses to own weapons. The millions of illegal weapons in Pakistan can only be reduced, not entirely eliminated, through persistent and dedicated policing coupled with changes in our ethical and cultural code.
The only lesson here in your article is that Pakistan already has too many stupid restrictions on gun-ownership. The political exploitation of the system to get licenses serves to illustrate this. In a country awashed with illegal weapons of all kinds, and non-functioning state bodies, civilian gun-ownership should be promoted, not discouraged. Unfortunately, Pakistan blindly continues the policies of Raj that obviously preferred unarmed “natives” over armed ones.
So please don’t blindly adopt meaningless political slogans that aim to take away any remaining rights and liberties in our society.