The Peshawar High Court (PHC) ruled on Friday that target killings and street crimes were on the rise due to the government’s issuance of arms licences on political grounds.It directed the federal interior secretary and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home secretary to present a report about the licences issued thus far. PHC Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan issued the directives to the secretaries concerned in bail petitions of three persons arrested for having a large cache of arms in the city.

A single bench of the chief justice directed the secretaries to again review issuance of licences in the province and the country and submit their report after conducting a detailed survey. He said every government issued licences of even prohibited arms on political grounds resulting in an increase in target killings and street crimes throughout the country.

The chief justice observed that there were no strict laws on arms and this was the reason that people have all kinds of arms and criminals use them easily for crimes. “The government is not interested in maintaining law and order. It is only interested in issuing arms’ licences to their own political workers,” he observed.

Jehanzeb, Gulab Sher and Olas Khan had filed bail petitions in the high court. Matani Police had arrested them on January 17, 2010 for possessing six Kalashnikov rifles, 13 repeaters, two Kalakov rifles and thousands of rounds.

Police then booked them under sections 13 and 14 of the Arms Ordinance. The petitioners’ counsel, Nasruminallah, said the case was bailable and requested that his clients be released. However, the state lawyer opposed bail to the accused and said a huge cache of arms had been recovered from them.

The chief justice observed that he was also not in favour of the release, but they have the right of bail under the law as the Arms Ordinance is very weak and the sections bailable. He further said criminals and other lawbreakers would continue carrying arms till strict laws with regards to the arms were adopted. The bench ordered release of the petitioners on bail after furnishing bail bonds of worth Rs300,000 each.

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