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| October 4, 2005 | Tuesday | Sha’aban 29, 1426 |
CBR gets report on stolen coins
PESHAWAR, Oct 3: The customs collectorate of Peshawar has recommended ignoring normal procedure to facilitate early handover of stolen coins to the Afghan authorities.
In its interim report submitted to the Central Board of Revenue (CBR), the local revenue collectors noted that the matter needed to be decided at the government-to-government level for which routine procedure should be set aside, according to official sources.
Under normal procedures, stolen items upon recovery have to be kept in official custody till decision by a competent court.
The issue should be treated in a manner that the retrieved coins could be handed over to the Afghan authorities at the earliest, said Dr Mohammed Saeed Jadoon, deputy collector, customs.
He said the CBR’s opinion had been sought as to how to pursue the case.
However, legal experts dealing with customs and income tax cases differed with this position, saying that the fate of the recovered items could only be decided by a competent court of law.
They said that the customs authorities were not competent to hand over the consignment to the Afghan authorities without permission by a competent court as the stolen items, upon recovery, tended to be treated as ‘case property’.
Some 40 boxes containing six million Afghani coins had gone missing from a consignment meant for Afghanistan.
Shipped from France, a total of 68 boxes loaded in two containers were being transported to Afghanistan by a Karachi-based shipping company without disclosing to the customs authorities that currency valuing 10.2 million Afghani was being transported to Afghanistan.
As per shipment documents, said Dr Saeed Jadoon, the consignment included brassware. But in actual fact it contained Afghani coins of the denomination of one, two and five which the government of Afghanistan intended to introduce.
On Sept 28, the customs authorities at Torkham found that some six million Afghani were missing from the two containers.
Initially, the driver of the trawler, Mumtaz Shinwari, and cleaner had been taken into custody but they managed to escape by taking advantage of prayers. Three security guards of the customs department were suspended for negligence of duty.
Official sources told Dawn that the stolen coins packed in 40 boxes, recovered with the involvement of a jirga of the Shinwari tribe, along with the remaining 28 boxes had been transported to Peshawar from Torkham and would be counted in the presence of Afghan authorities.
“We have been told by a representative of the Karachi-based shipping company that the Afghan government had nominated two representatives to be present at the time of counting,” said Dr Jadoon.
Mr Ahmed Saeedi, a Peshawar-based Afghan diplomat, said that details of the case would be brought before the press at an appropriate time.
“We have documentary evidence and a video film as well, which we will show at the right time,” said Mr Saeedi, refusing to be drawn into why Afghan Bank attempted to discreetly transport the coins to Afghanistan.
“The theft could have been avoided had we been intimated that currency was being transported to Afghanistan,” said Mr Jadoon, adding that “we would have arranged security cover in that case”.
Legal experts said that action could be taken against the shipping company for concealing the original specifications of the goods under transportation to Afghanistan.
Official sources said that even the Peshawar-based Afghan diplomats did not know that coins were being transported to Afghanistan via Torkham.
A representatives of the shipping company refused to answer when asked about its position viz-a-viz transporting coins worth millions of Afghanis by showing them as brassware.
“You better talk to customs authorities,” said the company representative.
Meanwhile, the customs collectorate has confiscated the trawler involved in the case. Though the owner - Mumtaz Shinwari - is at large, his son had been taken into custody, officials said.
In the given situation when customs have confiscated the trawler and made arrest, said legal experts, it would not be appropriate for them to hand over the coins to the Afghan authorities.
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