4 held for selling weapons online
Traders in Karachi, Sindh and security firms colluding with weapons dealers
Their modus operandi was to publicise the arms dealing through Facebook and Whatsapp groups.”
Raja Umer Khattab | Counter-Terrorism Department official
Pakistan police have arrested four for selling guns online via WhatsApp and Facebook as part of their quest to crack down on criminal marketplaces and stop the illegal flow of arms.
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh police said that the arms dealers in Karachi and rural Sindh as well as private security companies were colluding with weapons dealers in Dara Adam Khel, Dera Ismail Khan, and Peshawar in the supply and smuggling of illegal arms and issuing licences.
The CTD team conducted intelligence-based raids in different parts of the city, including University Road, Kashmir Road, Banaras Chowk and SITE Area, and arrested four illegal arms suppliers and smugglers and seized weapons and ammunition from their possession.
The interprovincial arms dealers were identified as Azmatullah, Bashir Khan, Fazal Jan, and Farmanullah, the CTD officials told reporters yesterday.
“Their modus operandi was to publicise the arms dealing through Facebook and Whatsapp groups,” said CTD official Raja Umer Khattab. The arms dealers “would add the interested buyers to their WhatApp groups to finalise deals and take 50 per cent advance payment through online transactions and the remaining payment at the time of delivery,” he explained. “They worked in an organised way with paid operatives in different parts of the country.”
Authentic look
The dealers also got money for helping the buyers get arms licenses that were found to befake. To give their phoney document an authentic look, the dealers would also “ask their clients to provide them with their fingerprints, identification card, and signatures through WhatsApp to fulfil the legal requirements and later provided clients with QR codes for verification purposes”, the officials said.
The latest crackdown comes after Sindh police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon recently said that the provincial police department was expanding the use of technology to tackle and reduce the crime rate.