Surrender of Illicit Arms Act, 1991

This 1991 Act requires people holding illegal weapons to hand them over to the authorities, as part of an effort to improve law and order. Section 2 defines illicit arms broadly to cover heavy weapons like cannons and explosive-carrying devices, all types of explosives and mines, chemical or gas-dispersing munitions, automatic firearms such as sub-machine guns, and ordinary rifles, shotguns, revolvers and pistols — as long as they are held in violation of laws like the Arms Act, 1878, the Explosives Act, 1884, the Explosive Substances Act, 1908, or the Pakistan Arms Ordinance, 1965.

Section 4 requires anyone possessing illicit arms to surrender them to the District Coordination Officer, Deputy District Officer (Revenue), the local police station, or another authority the Federal Government names, and get a receipt. Section 5 gives people who were abroad when the Act commenced sixty days from their return to surrender any illicit arms they hold. Section 6 requires the government to publicise the surrender campaign widely, including a public countdown of days remaining.

Section 7 sets out the punishments for failing to surrender, and they are severe and tiered by weapon category: life imprisonment plus forfeiture of property for the most dangerous categories (cannons, explosives, chemical weapons); life imprisonment or a minimum ten years for automatic firearms; and three to fourteen years' imprisonment for ordinary firearms like rifles and pistols. Any illicit arms involved are forfeited, and any vehicle or vessel used to transport them can also be confiscated.

Section 8 indemnifies a person who voluntarily surrenders arms from prosecution for having possessed them — but this protection does not cover any separate crime already committed using those arms. Sections 9 and 11 let the government run coordinated recovery campaigns and require existing arms licence holders to present their licences for scrutiny; a licence can be cancelled if retaining it is not in the public interest, and failing to present a licence for scrutiny under section 12 is punishable by three to ten years' imprisonment plus confiscation of the weapons. Section 13 exempts people already exempt under the Pakistan Arms Ordinance, 1965 by virtue of their office.