SOME news items never fail to amaze us, the latest being the disclosure by DG Rangers in the Supreme Court that about 19,000 containers had gone “missing a few years ago” (Aug 31), perhaps indicating that the near miracle occurred during the last five years of misrule of PPP under the watchful eyes of the then minister of port and shipping. We all know who he was.

If true, then where have these 19,000 containers gone “missing”? In which secret yard or tunnel these stolen containers are kept? Or were these monstrous things quietly exported back after discharging their, perhaps lethal, cargo? If so, where has the cargo gone?

We are not talking about needles in a haystack; we are talking about huge steel containers about the size of a railway bogey.

Unless the container transaction was only a paper exercise like the notorious practice of trucks containing imported goods meant for Kabul crossing the Torkham border and then discharging the goods at Landi Kotal!

It is some kind of a record worth finding a prominent place in the Guinness Book of World Records under the title “19,000 containers vanish in Pakistan”.

S.M. ANWAR
Karachi

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