Twirling his moustache, an arrogant young man proudly flaunts his automatic rifle in public.  Next, he is behind bars, the erstwhile machismo nowhere to be seen, weeping with remorse for not taking advantage of the government’s 15-day amnesty for surrender of illegal weapons. 

            This was one of the television advertisements aired on behalf of the ministry of interior over the past few weeks.  National and regional newspapers have also, on an almost daily basis, been carrying similar quarter-page advertisements exhorting the public to avail themselves of the government’s ‘arms amnesty drive’ from June 6 to June 20, or else be prepared to face exemplary punishment.  Besides this, green banners have been put up at numerous places across the country, warning of dire consequences for those retaining their illegal weapons beyond the cutoff point.  Despite the frenetic campaign however, which must have cost the government millions of rupees, the number of weapons surrendered by June 20 is no more than a drop in the ocean.

            According to the final tally announced by the ministry of interior at the end of its 15-day deadline, a total of 51,074 weapons have been relinquished in all four provinces.  According to the province-wise break-up, Punjab recorded the highest number of surrendered arms with 40,496 weapons being handed over, while in the entire Sindh province, which has been the most volatile of all the four provinces, only 1,113 weapons were given up (in Karachi, where according to one estimate, the number of Kalashnikovs alone is said to be 300,000, only 374 weapons of all types were surrendered).  As for the NWFP and Balochistan, which have been the traditional sources of supply for arms and ammunition all over the country, only 7,983 and 1,491 weapons respectively have been surrendered here. 

            This is not the first time that an attempt has been made to cleanse society of unlicenced weapons.  The first such drive was initiated on a massive scale in the mid ’80s in Karachi when a crackdown was launched targetting Sohrab Goth and other Karachi areas with a predominance of Pathans, known to be the main suppliers of weapons all over the country.  This operation, known as “Operation Sohrab Goth,” fizzled out without yielding any major breakthrough.

            During her second stint in power, when Benazir Bhutto’s government launched a clean-up operation, her interior minister Naseerullah Babar, used his connections in the Frontier to break the weapons supply line.  Babar reportedly offered arms smugglers heavy cash incentives in exchange for information about their clients in Sindh, especially in the mega city of Karachi.  Says a source,  “This strategy proved relatively successful in as much as the arms flow to Karachi shrank in volume, and several dealers in the city were identified and apprehended.”

            Nawaz Sharif also launched a deweaponisation campaign in his second term in office, but it was largely confined to the media and no major operation on the ground was launched to seize illegal arms.            

            Apart from this, raids have been carried out as a matter of course by the police in all four provinces against arms dealers and anti-social elements, most of which have rarely yielded more than a small number of illegal weapons.  There is general agreement among observers that none of the governments, including the present one, have ever launched a well-delineated plan to deweaponise society.

            The present government has notified the Surrender of Illicit Arms Act 1991 to provide legal cover to the latest crackdown on illegal weapons and to invoke the stringent penalties contained therein, including life imprisonment for those in possession of illegal arms.  Said federal interior secretary Tasneem Noorani, “This law, enacted almost 10 years ago, has been notified to give legal cover to the deweaponisation campaign and the crackdown,” adding that it had never been invoked because of the harsh punishments prescribed in it.  The government has also announced that cases of those found in possession of illegal arms will be challaned and referred to the speedy courts within seven days for quick disposal.

            Under the aforementioned Act, weapons are divided into three different categories and punishment will be awarded to the accused accordingly.  In the first category, life imprisonment and forfeiture of property will be awarded to those possessing illicit cannons, or explosive substances as defined in the Pakistan Arms Ordinance of 1965, including mines of all types, containers, grenades, bombs and shells that discharge poisonous or noxious gases or other chemicals or substances which cause bodily harm.  In the second category, imprisonment for life or for a term not less than 10 years will be given to those possessing firearms comprising automatic weapons (other than machine guns), including sub-machine guns, automatic rifles and machine pistols.  The third and final category carries the punishment of imprisonment for a term which may extend to 14 years but will not be less than three years for possessing illicit weapons such as rifles, carbines, muskets, shotguns, revolvers, pistols and appliances the object of which is the silencing of firearms. 

            Ironically however, this Act is neither applicable in the tribal areas of Balochistan, which constitute 96 per cent of the province’s total area, nor in the tribally administered areas of the Frontier province.

            Informed sources believe that rather than awarding harsh punishments alone, a better overall strategy is required to deter people from retaining and acquiring weapons illegally.  Says one of these observers, “Not many illegal weapons were surrendered during the 15-day amnesty scheme because most people don’t believe that the government possesses the ability to recover them.”  When it has proved unable to to foil strikes by political parties and prevent violence during these strikes, how can it successfully purge the society of illicit weapons.

            According to most observers, the persistent failure of Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider’s plans – from the regulation of Bara markets and alien registration to the drive against the display of weapons – stems from poor planning.  Says one source, “All over the country, not more than twenty cases against the display of arms have so far been registered and many influential people continue to openly carry weapons.”  The current deweaponisation campaign, believe cynics, will prove to be a similar exercise in futility.

            There is open defiance to the government’s campaign in some quarters.  Addressing a gathering of party workers, the chief of the Tanzeem-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, Maulana Shafi Mohammed, asserted that the people of Malakand division would not surrender their weapons under the campaign, which he denounced as a US conspiracy against the Muslims.  Until the enforcement of Shariat in the division, he said, no weapons would be relinquished.  “We are ready to embrace martyrdom at the hands of the government, but shall never surrender to the will of the infidels.” Likewise, the chief of the Mengal tribe in Balochistan, Attaullah Mengal, has also directed his tribesmen not to hand over weapons to the government.  “We will die, but we will not surrender our weapons,” he maintained.

            Opposition notwithstanding, the government has vowed to see its campaign through.  According to its strategy, on the basis of information gathered by the intelligence agencies, night raids will be carried out to seize illegal weapons and, if necessary, curfew will be imposed in the targetted areas during the course of recovering the weapons. 

            Given the vital role of the police in the practical aspect of its campaign, the government has announced promotions for Station House Officers (SHOs) on the basis of successful arms recovery operations in their respective jurisdictions.  Senior police officials, however, believe that the government has not taken into account the dismal state of the country’s police force and they express doubts over whether it can carry out the gargantuan task it has been assigned.  Says an official, “The police in Pakistan is a low-paid and over-worked institution, and also extremely demoralised.  Under the present circumstances, it is unrealistic to expect it to do the job efficiently.”  According to another police official, “It is simple to devise such plans while sitting in a plush office in Islamabad, but when the ground realities are considered it’s not a practical strategy.”

            Compounding the problem, according to sources, is the fact that not only does the government have no idea as to the number of illegal weapons in the country, but also that it has announced no plans to close down the huge arms industry in the Frontier.  Comments a senior government official, “It’s like persuading people not to smoke while refusing to shut down the cigarette industry.”  According to one estimate, in Darra Adam Khel in the Frontier province, there are some 6,000 shops dealing in weapons, while the number of people engaged in the business of manufacturing weapons is around 70,000.

            The Frontier has traditionally been the source of weapons for the entire country.  In fact, even Pathan-dominated areas of Karachi echo with gunshots during the night.  Discloses a source, “This is because arms dealers in these areas test weapons for prospective buyers in the night hours.”  Observers believe that weaponisation has various social implications and cannot be tackled solely on an administrative level.  “It has not been decided whether these arms industries will ultimately be closed down, and if so, how will the thousands of people dependent on the industry for their bread and butter survive,” says one such observer.

            Furthermore, no strategy has been devised to control the smuggling of arms from one province to another as the government does not possess the resources to keep a check on porous provincial limits.  Maintains an official, “Thousands of trucks from upcountry enter Karachi alone and even if one trucker brings in one weapon, it would defeat the government’s purpose.  It has neither sufficient manpower nor the resources to unload each truck to check its cargo for smuggled weapons.”

            Aside from this, sources maintain that the intelligence agencies themselves have created groups to counter political forces in the country and these are frequently used against each other; some of these groups have in fact, started operating independently of the intelligence agencies.

            Observers believe that the deweaponisation campaign would have achieved its objectives if the government had devised a strategy to cut the weapons supply line as well as extinguish the militant organisations’ sources of funds.  Says one source, “At the moment, they have enough resources to acquire whatever weapons are needed.”