PESHAWAR, Aug 21: Security officials on Monday seized 6.64 tons of fine quality hashish from an LPG tanker on the GT Road near Amangarh in Nowshera district. Officials said that the narcotics were seized by customs’ anti-smuggling squad.

Sources said that a customs’ official fired several shots but the driver of the vehicle and a colleague escaped, these sources said.

Two fingers of one of the inspectors got fractured in the ensuing struggle before the escape of the two men, they added.

Deputy Collector (anti-smuggling) Abdul Waheed Marwat claimed that the customs collector had constituted a squad headed by him and they were alert near Amangarh to foil the smuggling attempt to the Punjab province.

Speaking at a press conference at the Customs House here, Mr Marwat said that the team signalled the tanker, but the driver accelerated the speed and entered the vehicle into the fields and from where they managed to escape.

“The two smugglers might have crossed the Kabul river,” he commented to a query about the escaped of the smugglers in the day time.

He said that they brought the LPG tanker from the field to the Customs House and during the checking recovered 6640kgs of hashish.

The drug was properly packed which indicated that the final destination of the consignment might be a foreign country, Mr Marwad said.

The seized drugs was worth about Rs132.8 million in the local market but the consignment price in the Punjab province and international market was much higher, the deputy collector said.

The deputy collector said that during the past six months, customs authorities had seized about 6,000 kilogrammes of hashish and arrested 14 drug smugglers in Nowshera.