KARACHI: Customs Peshawar and Customs Karachi in a joint operation arrested two absconders wanted in the case pertaining to import of fireworks.

Investigation Officer (IO) Appraisement West Azhar Abbas and Deputy Collector Peshawar Zakir Khan, Inspector Mohammad Nazim had been tracing the accused for the last two months and finally, they were arrested in Peshawar.

The arrested accused include Sajid Hussain of M/s Iqra International and Mohammad Adnan of M/s AD International.

It may be recalled Pakistan Customs had recovered fireworks and explosives weighing 22 tons from a container at West Wharf.

MCC Preventive Karachi Port Control Unit (PCU) had blocked a container at West Wharf, which as per intelligence reports was stuffed with fireworks. The said container imported by M/s A.D International was imported from China and destined to dry port Peshawar. FIR had been lodged to this effect.

MCC Appraisement West had lodged an FIR against directors of M/s Iqra International for attempting to clear fireworks mis-declaring the same as tiles imported from China.

Import of fireworks is pyrotechnic articles is not permissible to import in terms of Import Policy Order, 2016 and import of fireworks fall within the purview of smuggling.

Now that accused have been arrested further investigations are underway.