KARACHI: As a campaign against smuggling is underway, Customs Preventive Karachi conducted a raid at a shopping mall in Tariq Road Karachi and recovered smuggled cloth worth Rs20 million.
Collector Preventive Saquib Saeed had advised Deputy Collector Akbar Jan to launch a crackdown on malls and markets housing smuggled goods.
Akbar Jan along with Superintendent Jamal Zia, IPS Iftikhar Hasan and his team conducted a research and then raided the Designer Mall in Tariq Road. The smuggled goods were recovered and transferred to Customs custody in five trucks. The Customs staff also faced resistance as the inmates of the said mall, mostly Afghan nationals, opened fire on Customs staff and damaged the ASO vehicles.
It may be mentioned here that Deputy Collector Akbar Jan along with his team also detected the pilferage of Afghan Transit Trade goods, which were being distributed to the markets in Karachi including Jama cloth market. They also detected misuse of green channel facility and import of high tariff goods in the garb of used clothing.
It may be mentioned here that large quantity of miscellaneous goods are smuggled into country from Afghanistan and Iran, and despite presence of over two dozen of security check posts, these smuggled goods find their way to the markets of Karachi and other urban centers of the country.
An official said that Army deliberately ignored the transportation of smuggled goods at the borders, as there were no employment opportunities in Baluchistan.
Afghan Transit Trade has been the biggest source of smuggling as the goods imported by Afghan nationals under transit trade are pilfered in the country, or these are smuggled back into Pakistan after being delivered in Afghanistan. However, the transit trade is being restricted to quota based imports, and soon this source of smuggling would be closed.
Sources said Pakistan Army was playing an effective role in curbing smuggling and countering other means of financial terrorism. COAS General Qamar Bajwa is personally looking into the issue of financial terrorism and took many important measures in this regard, this is the reason his extension has been made controversial.