DERA GHAZI KHAN, Dec 21: The confiscation of three trucks, bound for the NWFP, laden with wheat at Triman post on Dec 19 in a surprise police raid shows the smuggling of wheat on fake permission letters is going on.

Police arrested six drivers of the trucks who admitted during investigation that wheat was loaded from Layyah and Toba Tek Singh. The documents, however, showed that consignments were loaded from Karachi for the NWFP.

In Nov last, a nexus of smugglers and Food Department officials was unearthed which had smuggled wheat worth millions to Balochistan and the NWFP.

When the smuggling of wheat on fake permission letters was unearthed in Nov, neither the Food Department nor police took stern action against the real culprits but registered a case against a clerk and a fax operator of the Food Department. Police gave up the case when department officials went on a week-long strike against police and the matter was closed.

Officials said that police should have nabbed the contractor who sold the wheat in Sindh meant for the NWFP. Then he would buy wheat from south Punjab and smuggle it to the NWFP.

Sources say the illegal supply to the NWFP from Punjab has been going on since July via Triman and Sakhi Sarwar check posts despite frequent visits of the Punjab Food Department director and secretary.

Flour Mills Association leader Habib Khan Leghari demanded the government arrest the contractor who sold imported wheat in Sindh instead of sending to the NWFP while he procured wheat from Dera Ghazi Khan to supply it to the NWFP showing the wheat was released by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

District Police Officer Maqsoodul Hasan told Dawn that police would break the gang involved in the smuggling soon. He said the Punjab Food Department director had assured him the vigilance system would be reformed to halt the smuggling.