KARACHI: The importer of vehicles and overseas Pakistanis sending the vehicles to Pakistan are troubled as often the keys, and other accessories/parts of the vehicles are stolen in the custody of Karachi Port Trust (KPT).

In a recent incident, a number of vehicles arrived at the port from Japan in a vessel named Daudalus Leader of NYK Shipping. These vehicles were offloaded from the vessel, and were driven to KPT.

It may be mentioned here that keys are with the cars always, and these vehicles are turned on and driven to KPT. However, the keys of these vehicles went missing causing much trouble to the importers and owners of these vehicles.

According to sources, it is a routine that keys, bumpers, stereo players and other accessories are removed from the vehicles at KPT. The keys costs Rs5,000 to Rs500,000. The origin company issued key of a Mercedes car costs Rs50,000. The price of the keys of Mira, Passo and Vitz is Rs10,000, while key of Prius costs Rs30,000 and keys of Land Cruiser and Prado costs Rs200,000.

Not only the owners of these imported cars face trouble in getting the duplicate keys made, this also reduces the value of these vehicles.

It was learnt that several complaints had been lodged with KPT regarding theft of car keys and other accessories, but no action was ever taken, and this practice still continues.