MULTAN, Jan 28: Smuggling of vehicles has once again picked up to the Punjab through the semi-tribal Dera Ghazi Khan district allegedly under the patronage of influential people of the area.

Dawn learnt that at least 21 reconditioned cars (Toyota Corolla 86 model) had entered the Punjab last week through the inter-provincial border between the Punjab and Balochistan. The vehicles successfully crossed three Border Military Police (BMP) check posts at Bawata, Rakhi Munh and Rakhi Garj and another near Sakhi Sarwar.

A source told this correspondent that most of the smuggled cars were kept parked for a whole night behind a highway hotel near Habibabad village on the Dera-Sakhi Sarwar Road five days ago.

Another source in the BMP though confirmed the smuggling of the vehicles through Bawata, contradicted the crossing of such a large number of cars through the inter-provincial border.

He said a known Balochistan smuggler, also notorious for facilitating the Americans in catching Mir Aimal Kasi from a DG Khan hotel, had been pursuing tribal area authorities to “allow” him to transport a fleet of smuggled cars to Punjab for the last several months. The civil administration however did not budge to his offer, he said. The fleet, he said, had reportedly been parked in the bordering Rakhni village of Balochistan before its entry into the Punjab.

Another source claimed the ‘safe passage’ to Punjab cost Rs20,000 per vehicle to the smuggler.

Smuggling through the inter-provincial highway of Dera is not a new phenomenon. Besides vehicles, Iranian oil and copper scrap had earlier been smuggled to the Punjab through Bawata. Fan industry of Gujranwala and Gujrat had been the main buyers of copper scrap.

During the middle of the last decade, an influential person of Dera had been accused of smuggling dozens of luxury SSR Toyota pick-ups in league with the Kasi-famed notorious smuggler of Balochistan.

Last year, he was arrested at the Attock check post between the Punjab and the NWFP, riding a vehicle bearing fake documents.

Sources said most of the smuggled vehicles had actually been stolen from various parts of the country. “They are driven to markets in Balochistan and the NWFP where their engine and chassis numbers are tampered with,” they added.

COMMITS SUICIDE: A young married woman allegedly took her life over a domestic issue in Mumtazabad here on Monday.