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| December 8, 2005 | Thursday | Ziqa’ad 5, 1426 |
Indian train with relief goods ‘stranded’
LAHORE, Dec 7: An Indian freight train carrying around 1,320 tons of relief supplies has been standing at the yard of the Lahore railway station since Nov 23, it is learnt. The Pakistan Railways officials told Dawn on Tuesday that the documents provided by their Indian counterparts were incomplete and the consignment was for “the government of Pakistan, Lahore, from the government of India, New Delhi.”
The Pakistan Railways, they said, had wound up its operation of free transportation of relief goods. “At present, we have no budget for the purpose and the train cannot move further without payment of Customs duties. No official of either the federal or the provincial government has formally received the train yet.”
The 22 bogie-covered wagons have blankets, tents, warm cloths, medicines and dry food items, according to the documents handed over to the PR authorities by their Indian counterparts.
No senior officer of the Pakistan Railways was available for comments till the filing of this report.
The first consignment of relief supplies through a freight train had crossed Wagah on Oct 15 and the second carrying around 378 tons of goods arrived from India on Oct 18.
The PR locomotives pulled both the Indian stock from Atari to the Wagah where the trains were checked by law-enforcement authorities and later forwarded to Havelian via Rawalpindi.
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