LANDI KOTAL, Dec 9: Hamidullah is happy and hopeful. He has reasons to rejoice. There are more customers visiting his secondhand TV shop in Peshawar than they were during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Sitting in his shop in Peshawar’s Karkhano bazaar, Pakistan’s largest foreign goods (mostly illegal) market, Hamidullah says he is finding it difficult to cope with the demand from neighbouring Afghanistan.

The secondhand television sets bought in bulk from the Japanese electronic goods market on throwaway prices were doing good business. Earlier, you could buy a 34” Sony set for Rs23,000, and 29” Sony up to Rs17,000. Less popular brands were even cheaper. But all such items are a rarity now.

Stocks in the big warehouses in the tribal areas are shrinking. Most of these TVs are going to Kabul, where people are rejoicing at the resumption of television service after almost five years.

“Jalalabad ranks second in demand for used televisions,” revealed one dealers. People in the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province that borders Pakistan are able to watch Pakistan TV programmes, via television booster installed for the benefit of Pakistani tribesman.

During the Taliban rule not many dared to watch television. Those with guts scrambled close to TV sets in their homes and watched Pakistani programmes at extremely low volume.

A foreign journalist recalled the fear and excitement of an Afghan family who invited him to their house in Jalababad to watch a video of the blockbuster Titanic with them.

The dealers say, times have changed now. Even in conservative Jalalabad, music was being played full-blast in roadside restaurants, and television shops have reopened once again. “There is great demand for small 14” televisions in Afghanistan,” says a visiting Afghan journalist from Jalalabad.

Hamidullah, the Peshawar shop owner, says that besides television sets, cassette players, music cassettes and CDs are being sold like hot cakes.

The electronics dealers in Peshawar are pleased at the recent turn of events in Afghanistan. For decades, electronic goods were being smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan. But now it’s the other way around, says one dealer at the Karkhano bazaar.

Even for the carriers, who make small money in transporting these goods through arduous and often hazardous mountainous routes, the situation has proved to be a windfall.

“It had become difficult to bring things into Pakistan from Afghanistan due to tight border security even on some of the unfrequented routes, but it is relatively easy to take things back to Afghanistan now,” one such carrier, Abdul Rehman says.

He says that it costs between Rs200 and Rs500 per TV (depending on the size of the set) to take it back to Afghanistan from Ali Masjid to Zakhakhel Bazaar and then to Guruko at Torkham at the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Hamidullah says that the developments in Afghanistan promise significant business opportunities for all, specially the Pakistanis. “We have suffered the most because of the internecine war in Afghanistan. I hope there will be peace now. Peace brings prosperity, and the Afghans need it more than anybody else.”