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Pak to legalise arms factories in tribal areas

British Broadcasting Corporation (Urdu) on Thursday night said the head of the Pakistan Ordnance Factory Lt Gen Qayyum Khan visited Adam Khel on Thursday and met factory owners and tribal leaders. He discussed the possibility of a tie-up between the POF and these factories.

He said the factories would be supplied with quality steel so that they improved the standard of their weapons. However, factory workers have expressed apprehensions at the government's decision fearing it will lead to lay-offs.

The decision to legalise these factories is not new. In 1998, the Nawaz Sharif government, too, had announced a plan to legalise them and make them subsidiary to the POF. However, that plan did not take shape because some of the government's conditions were not acceptable to the factory owners and workers.

These factories have existed for the past about 140 years in Adam Khel, a tribal area in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. They are famous for masterfully duplicating guns produced in Western countries.

It is said that rival ethnic groups in Karachi, which are the cause of much of the bloodshed in the city, receive arms mainly from Adam Khel and so do sectarian groups like the Sipah-i-Sahaba and Sipah-i-Mohammadi.

UNI

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