CEO booked: private company sealed for illegally retrofitting vehicles

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday sealed the premises of a private company and registered a first information report (FIR) against its chief executive officer (CEO) for illegally retrofitting stock vehicles into bullet-proof ones.
An official of the Ministry of Interior said that the FIA has registered an FIR against CEO of Pak Armoring Karachi, Khurram Hamirani, for illegally bullet-proofing and commissioning the use of 92 vehicles, without the valid no objection certification (NOC), issued by the Ministry of Interior.
He said the company has been investigated by the Ministry of Interior, which discovered the elaborate network of fake NOCs. The ministry has also started probe into the matter to expose the officials who facilitated the CEO of the company in running illegal business, he added.
He said that 92 vehicles illegally retrofitted by the company would also be seized by the FIA for being illegal and case property. The official said it is illegal to make or acquire a bullet-proof vehicle without a specific licence that could only be issued by a special section within the Ministry of Interior. He said that currently only those retrofitting companies are operating in the country which has obtained licence from the ministry.
About bullet-proofing of the vehicles, Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan said that an assessment committee should scrutinise and analyse such requests without referring them to the intelligence agencies in the first instance. "Only the citizens who are regular tax-payers and have genuine security concern should enjoy this facility," he said and added, "We need to discourage such elements who use bullet-proof vehicles as their status symbols." He said there should be a centralised office at federal level to maintain record of all the bullet-proof vehicles, which should be instantly updated in case of change in the ownership.