[caption id="attachment_48932" align="alignnone" width="1011"]Picture courtesy: Nagarik daily Picture courtesy: Nagarik daily[/caption] Kathmandu, 10 July: Amid faltering economy and declining foreign exchange reserve, the government is all set to purchase weapons and crowd control equipment for Nepal Police. Security experts are of the view that such weapons are not required for the Nepal Police immediately. A recent Cabinet meeting has approved the purchase of lethal weapons put forth by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the process of opening the Letter of Credit (LC) will start within a couple of days, according to Nagarik daily. Weapons worth Rs 1.35 billion have been proposed and it has been planned to procure weapons worth Rs 840 million in the first phase. Remaining weapons will be bought in the second phase.  The payments will me made for 9 mm pistol and shotguns. The Nepal Army, the Armed Police Force and the Nepal Police have a syndicate to procure weapons, equipment  including other necessary provisions, sans competition. Weapons will be brought by the same agents, promoting syndicate and fiscal anomalies. The procurement process has been moved forward to give contracts to arms dealers and commission to the leaders of political parties, reports the paper. Police officials claim that they are preparing to buy weapons viewing the upcoming election of the Federal Parliament and Provincial Assembly. People's News Monitoring Service