Why gifting recovered arms to LEOs is a bad idea

seized weaponsPakistan Army has announced that it will gift thousands of weapons and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition to police, Rangers and the Levies. At first this appears like a sound policy that is not only economical but also helps build camaraderie between security agencies. However, on second thought there are important reasons why this programme should be abandoned immediately.

LEAs regularly discover weapons caches when conducting raids, and often these weapons are claimed to be of foreign origin, suggesting links between suspected parties and hostile agencies. There have been some problems with these claims, though, such as when Rangers accused MQM of having a large cache of weapons stolen from NATO containers, only to have the US government clarify that they were not NATO weapons. These and other incidents have created some doubts about whether or not agencies are ‘planting’ weapons.

The fact is that tracing the origin of weapons is especially difficult, and sometimes impossible. By giving LEAs a treasure trove of illegal weapons used by terrorists, it will only open the flood gates of denials and doubts about whether future seizures are real or planted. Officials have thought of this, and are trying to take some measures.

These arms and ammunition recovered during various operations are properly being recorded and marked to ensure that none of these arms and ammunition is misappropriated or misused,” a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

This is not enough, though. If the records are made and kept by the same agencies that are making arrests where weapons are found, how will we know that those records are not being manipulated or hidden? No, the best answer is that all weapons seized in raids should be destroyed in public, and all security personnel should be issued new arms whose serial numbers are recorded in official records.

Nobody wants to doubt the sincerity of our security personnel, especially when it is a matter of planting weapons. 99.99% of our LEOs are above reproach, but there are a few who get carried away such as in the killing of Sarfraz Shah and the torture death of Aftab Ahmed. Introducing thousands and thousands of illegal weapons into the system will only add to doubts at a time when national security dictates that all means should be taken to protect the credibility of the law enforcement system.

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Kashmir uprising a distraction from local atrocities?

wani-beesThe latest Kashmir uprising has united Pakistan unlike anything before. Whole nation has come together and is ready to sacrifice for the liberation of Kashmir from Indian oppression. Even APS massacre was not able to keep the nation united like Indian abuses in Kashmir has. In his speech at the UN, PM Nawaz Sharif noted the abuses being faced by Kashmiri people and even offered to provide a dossier documenting these brutalities. Kashmir has been the top news story for months, and social media has become filled with Burhan Wannabees. But there is another place where Muslims are being abused and even killed in much larger numbers, so why nobody is rising up to defend them?

Human Rights Watch has released a new report documenting that thousands of Pakistanis are being murdered by police in fake encounters. Such atrocities come as a surprise only because our media does not celebrate them like atrocities in Kashmir. However, if Burhan Wani being killed by Indian security forces makes him a martyr for Kashmir, how can we not give the same title to Pakistanis illegally killed by Pakistani security forces? Social media is filled with Burhan Wannabees, but no one is seen wearing a mask of Aftab Ahmed who was tortured to death by Pakistan Rangers.

Kashmiri people are facing horrible abuses by Indian security forces, and we have declared that we will even gladly die in a nuclear war to free them, but we will do not even notice when our own fellow citizens are facing the same abuses and even worse? I am not saying that social media’s keyboard commandoes should be rallying behind a ‘Karachi Intifada’, but I am saying that we should stop to think why are so passionate about abuses somewhere else and so dispassionate about the same, and even worse abuses at home.

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