LAHORE: The Mozang police have arrested a man accused of displaying weapons and carrying out aerial firing, after several videos of him brandishing arms circulated on social media.
According to police, the suspect, Ahmed Aslam, was arrested at Qartaba Chowk under the stop-and-search procedure.
According to a police spokesperson, two illegal pistols and ammunition were recovered from the arrested man’s possession. Police have registered a case against Ahmed Aslam and handed him over to the investigation wing for further investigation.
The case follows a pattern that has become routine in Lahore’s policing of weapons offences. Videos posted for status among peer groups supply the police with dated, geolocated visual evidence of an offence that would otherwise leave no record at all.
Aerial firing is difficult to prosecute on conventional evidence. There is rarely a complainant, the projectile is seldom recovered, and by the time a report reaches a police station the shooter has dispersed. A video showing the weapon, the individual and often the location closes each of those gaps simultaneously.
The Punjab police have in recent years operated dedicated monitoring of publicly posted content depicting weapons display, with district operations wings referring identified individuals for stop-and-search or targeted arrest.
Unlicensed possession of a firearm is an offence under the Punjab Arms Ordinance 1965, which regulates the manufacture, sale, possession and carriage of arms and ammunition in the province. Licences are district-specific and impose conditions on where and how a weapon may be carried.
Aerial firing is separately addressed under Section 337-H(ii) of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with rash or negligent acts endangering human life, and under provisions of the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance where a public order dimension arises.
A bullet discharged vertically returns to earth at a velocity sufficient to cause fatal injury. Deaths and serious injuries from falling rounds are recorded in Pakistan every year, concentrated around wedding celebrations, election results, sporting victories and New Year’s Eve.
Victims are almost never connected to the shooter and frequently are indoors or on rooftops at a considerable distance. Because the round descends without a traceable trajectory, attributing a specific injury to a specific weapon is close to impossible — which means most such deaths are recorded without any prosecution following.
Lahore police have run periodic campaigns against celebratory firing around festival dates and public occasions, combining public messaging with arrests and licence cancellations.
The stop-and-search method under which the arrest was made involves the checking of individuals and vehicles at temporary points established on the basis of intelligence or crime pattern analysis. Its use in Lahore has expanded as part of street crime interdiction, and it is the mechanism through which a substantial share of the district’s illegal weapons recoveries are made.
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