January 25, 2002	Friday	Ziqa’ad 10, 1422

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KOHAT, Jan 24: Afghan commanders have reopened the border of Afghanistan’s Khost province with North Waziristan, which is infamous for the smuggling of non-custom paid vehicles, Dawn learnt reliably on Wednesday.

Witnesses said on Tuesday that the commanders had ordered reopening of the border for all kinds of businesses on Sunday, followed by entry of dozens of smuggled vehicles into Pakistan.

They said the local tribesmen and their Afghan partners had suffered huge losses due to the temporary closure of the Durand Line along which army men had been deployed to check entry of Taliban and Al Qaeda men.

As soon as the army men had been pulled out of the border area last week, the routine business had again begun and dozens of vehicles were entering the tribal area daily, they added.

In dozens of open-air showrooms, spread over acres of land in Miramshah, the headquarters of the North Waziristan Agency, at least 7,000 vehicles of various types were awaiting potential buyers and the business was slowly picking up, an official of the Customs office, which controls the Southern region from Kohat up to Dera Ismail Khan, including the four tribal agencies and three frontier regions, told this correspondent.

The border security force charged between Rs2,000 and Rs3,000 per vehicle for allowing it to enter Pakistan, Haji Momin, who owns a big business and supplies such vehicles to buyers in Punjab, said.

Replying to a question, he said the prices of the non-customs paid vehicles were extremely low and daily from 30 to 50 vehicles entered Pakistan. The border security personnel were making hundreds of thousands of rupees daily, he said and added that as they knew that the business was permanent, their rates had been fixed years ago.

He said Hiace was priced at from Rs70,000 to Rs200,000; Toyota 88 at Rs120,000 (maximum); Mercedes between Rs300,000 and Rs600,000; Toyota pickup at Rs200,000 and jeeps of different makes between Rs50,000 and Rs100,000.

An official of the Customs southern region of the NWFP said that only during the last year, the Customs staff had confiscated vehicles worth Rs800 million and an equal amount under the amnesty period for registering such vehicles.

The appointments of Customs staff at the entry points in four tribal agencies met with a failure because the political administration did not cooperate with them for obvious reasons.

The Customs staff were not allowed to conduct raids on tribal areas although it was possible with the help of the local authorities.