KARACHI: Syed Faiz Rasool Rashidi, judge, Special Customs Court on Monday sought a report from Investigating Officer (IO) of Anti Smuggling Organization (ASO) in a case of Afghan Reverse Cargo Pilferage.

Earlier the IO, Inspector Khalid Javed of ASO served a notice under section 171 of Customs Act 1969 upon the accused Shahid Ansari for sealing his warehouses Musharraf Yard and Bhains Colony yard.

The court perusing the notice and other record found infirmities in the report and refused to entertain the same calling report from IO, adjourning further proceedings till Dec 23.

Today when the Customs officials produced the record before the judge, Pervez Mustafa Khawaja advocate, counsel for accused submitted that applicant / accused has a fleet of 150 vehicles and works for reputed companies like ICI, APL contributing huge revenue to the national exchequer.

The applicant / accused has tendered receipts of air conditioners etc to the raiding party but ignoring the receipts, a fake case was foisted upon him, pleaded the counsel further submitting that the raid  at two places were conducted without obtaining a search warrant hence rendering entire exercise and alleged recoveries doubtful. The section 186 and 187 were violated by the IO and the custom officers, submitted counsel for accused.

Justice Rashidi expressed his displeasure on the documentation and summoned Collector Preventive to appear before the court forthwith.

The Customs did not provide the details of military equipment recovered from the warehouses and mentioned in the report that the subject goods had been given into the possession of the warehouse owners.

Judge expressed his displeasure and inquired whether the ownership of the goods had been proved and advised the Collector Preventive to provide detail report of the case immediately. MCC Preventive after a couple of hours submitted the required report with the Nazir of the court.

There were 298 containers at the Bhains colony warehouses and all these containers were pilfered or stolen during afghan transit. Moreover, 27 containers had been scrapped.

Mauripur yard spread over 25 acres is housing around 4000 containers and the inventory is still being prepared. Most of these containers are shipper-owned including refrigerated containers and containers owned by US government are also there.