PESHAWAR, Oct 12: Three persons arrested in connection with smuggling of ‘statues of Buddha’ and other pieces have claimed that these ‘antiques’ are fake.

They claimed that these statues were locally made and they were trying to sell them out to some foreign antique lovers by masquerading them as genuine.

The arrested persons — Haji Ghulam Sakhi, son of Mohammad Yousuf, resident of Hussainabad; Hamayun, son of Abdul Hameed, resident of Latifabad; and, Shaukat Hussain, son of Faqir Mohammad, resident of Gulshan Rehman Colony — have filed bail petitions before the court of special judge customs and anti-smuggling.

The court will take up for hearing their application on Oct 15. They have prayed the court that they may be released on bail as they had not committed any crime by trying to export fake artifacts.

The applicants stated that the archeological expert had not conducted the relevant tests for verifying the authenticity of the seized items. They added that they were falsely implicated in the case.

The accused were arrested by officials of customs department on Oct 7 after the statues and other ‘artifacts’ were recovered from wooden furniture booked for Switzerland.

An archaeological expert, who examined the seized items, claimed that these were centuries-old original statues belonging to Gandhara civilisation. The customs officials claimed that these seized ‘artifacts’ were worth Rs7 million.

A firm, the World Plus International, Peshawar, had delivered the consignment through Mehran customs clearing agency at Peshawar Dry Port. The Customs officials, on suspicion, opened the boxes and after thorough checking, recovered the statues.

The Customs department had registered an FIR under Customs Act and section 26 and 27 of the Antiquity Act.