PESHAWAR, Aug 7: Ibrahim Shinwari gazes into his crystals and sees a bleak future. The crystal is not genuine, but the message is clear: Pakistan’s shrine of shoppers is collapsing.

Shinwari is sitting in his glassware store in the Bara Market, once the capital of smuggled goods.

Located on the outskirts of Peshawar, the market, sometimes called the more respectful Kar Khanoo market, is in deep trouble. There are more traders than shoppers these days.

Tighter customs regime in recent years coupled with the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States which led to US military action in Afghanistan, has spelt gloom for the merchants.

Better patrolling along border with Afghanistan 35km away has meant fewer goods and narcotics slip into Pakistan.

The market — once known to stock any brand of cosmetics, toys, clothing, electronic appliances, crockery, cutlery — is crumbling. Now the 4,000 retailers and wholesalers often have little more to do than stare at each other.

“No one ever estimated the amount of sales here when we had it good,” says Shinwari. “But, it was huge. Very huge. Now we are going through a very difficult period.”

More than 75 per cent of the business has evaporated and many shopkeepers have put up shutters.

Andul Wasif sells glassware and knick-knacks imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but says he can hardly earn Rs500 a day, down from 10 times that a year ago.

Bara Market had an army of professional couriers who carried supplies to other parts of the country, posing as bona fide consumers in order to avoid customs checks along the motorways.

They are now out of work.

Shinwari, who claims to be both Afghan and Pakistani at the same time as he comes from the tribal belt straddling the two countries, disputes the accusation that Bara Market is full of smuggled goods.

Traders made use of a trade and transit treaty under which land-locked Afghanistan imported goods duty-free through Pakistan. Most of the merchandise found its way to the Bara Market.

“It is a question of how you look at it. It is not illegal for tribal people to deal in business like this. So it is not an illegal trade.”

Shinwari says the prices at present are so high, it is becoming cheaper to pay customs duty.

He has already opened another shop in Lahore as business here is going down.

“There used to be a time when people from all over the country came here to buy. Now I bring glassware from my shop in Lahore to keep this place stocked.”

An entire block dedicated to televisions and video cassette players, had no customers for a whole afternoon. Traders sipped tea and considered their future.

A large consumer base vanished in March when some 800,000 Afghan refugees who had been living in Peshawar and nearby towns began returning home under a United Nations-aided repatriation programme.

Away from public gaze, some have started “re-conditioning” second-hand television sets, microwave ovens, washing machines and air conditioners imported from Japan.

Trader Jasbeer Singh says business is down partly because fakes have flooded the market. His “Kalvin Cline” handbags sell at Rs100. Even then, there are few takers.

The reputation of the market is such that despite the slump in business, customs men could be seen waiting in ambush for vehicles transporting merchandise from here.

Traders recently took up the issue with the local government authorities who promised not to harass Bara Market customers.

“Old habits die hard,” said a local journalist about the customs operations along the main road leading out of the market. “It is hard times for them too.”

A short walk west of Bara Market is a tribal arms bazaar that is now strictly off limits for foreigners. —AFP