New SRO for Self Import of Weapons by Government Officials

Hello. I have been getting emails and messages regarding the latest situation on the import of weapons. This post is exclusively about the import procedures for Government officers and officials according to the new SRO by the Ministry of Commerce and Textiles. This means all Government, Armed forces officers, Law enforcement agencies etc etc. The SRO 772-1-2018 , published on 19th June 2018 has superseded the previous SRO 1112-1-2014 which was published on 16th Dec 2014 which so now stands repealed.  Just a brief recap on the previous procedure, Government officials had to apply to Ministry of Commerce previously to get an NOC for individual import of weapons, as each officer could import one weapon of non-prohibited from anywhere in the world. Please read this post for detailed information. Now according to the new SRO any individual who is a citizen of Pakistan and a valid license holder can import a non-prohibited weapon of choice.

If you read the above posted SRO it becomes clear that there is confusion regarding individual imports and commercial imports. The paragraph (b) gets shittier and tries to explain the procedure and then further confuses the matter. The fine line between individual and commercial imports is blurred. It was only after a lot of hue and cry was raised and much later when the ban on imports was lifted that another clarification was issued which made things a little easy for the Government officials, at least theoretically. Please see this;

So now the the onus and gauntlet has been thrown to the Customs to do the necessary clarification if any.  What this means is that, any individual who is a citizen of Pakistan, can now import a non-prohibited weapon if he has a valid weapon license. Frankly I haven’t so far heard of a single case where any licensee has imported a weapon based on this policy. This also means that you can now connect with international companies and ask them to export a weapon of your choice to you, based on this policy. Only if they agree to export a single piece, which they will not since it will either become too expensive for you or might not make good profit for the exporter and hence will not work out. The only workaround in this case would be for a group of people to collect their individual licenses and apply for an import, the strength in numbers policy might work. Till then, good luck. By they way I would love to hear of cases where individual imports have borne fruits. Cheers.