LANDI KOTAL: Customs clearing agents at Torkham border went on strike on Tuesday against the decision of the officials to examine all goods taken to Afghanistan under Afghan Transit Trade Treaty.

Torkham Customs Clearing Agents Association president Hayatullah Shinwari told Dawn that not a single truck loaded with Afghan transit goods was cleared on Tuesday. He, however, said that vehicle carrying Pakistani export items were allowed clearance as those were not fully examined.

Mr Shinwari said that Customs officials used to examine only five to 10 per cent of their goods as per the laws and they had no problem in unloading only a little portion of the loaded vehicles. “Heavy goods and electronic appliances offloaded for examination are lying in the open for the last two days with the Customs office without a fork lifter thus compelling us to arrange for manual labour for reloading,” he added.

No truck loaded with Afghan transit trade goods cleared on Tuesday

Customs officials at Torkham said that complete examination of Afghan transit goods was initiated after receiving information about unlawful ‘dropping’ of certain items on Pakistan soil by some transporters after de-sealing their containers.

They said that orders about full examination of Afghan transit goods containers were issued from Karachi port and they had no choice but to obey orders of their high-ups.

Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, president Frontier Customs Agent Group, said that he was in contact with Customs officials in Karachi to ease the new rules. He, however, said that not every vehicle was examined and only suspicious containers were randomly checked and then cleared after the Customs officials were satisfied that the container was not secretly de-sealed.

He also demanded of the National Logistic Cell to provide all the required facilities to both the transporters and clearing agent at their terminals in Torkham and Jamrud.

Mr Sarhadi said that NLC authorities were charging every vehicle of Rs2,500 in the name of provision of better facilities to transporters and clearing agents but regretted that no facilities were provided to them so far.

ARRESTS: The political administration on Tuesday arrested nearly 100 Khugakhel tribesmen to avoid an armed clash between rival groups over the award of contract of a taxi stand at Torkham.

Two groups of Khugakhel tribe were at loggerheads over the award of one-year contract since the mid of last year. Local political administration nominated a jirga a month ago to resolve the issue.

The jirga decided that both the groups would operate the taxi stand on their turns. The local administration claimed that both the groups willingly signed the agreement made by the jirga but later on backtracked from the pledge and one of the group sent its armed men on Tuesday to forcibly occupy the stand near the Torkham border.

Assistant Political Agent Rahimullah Mehsud said that he ordered arrest of at least 100 Khugakhel tribesmen to ward off any armed clash between the two groups. He said that efforts would be made to pacify both the groups and make them accept the decision of the jirga.

Khugakhels, however, resented arrest of the tribesmen and threatened to block Peshawar-Torkham Highway on Wednesday if they were not released.

Published in Dawn January 4th, 2017