SHEIKHUPURA, Dec 15: The owners of more than 300 flour mills in the Punjab are involve in smuggling of wheat and flour to the NWFP and Afghanistan.

This was claim by a local wheat trader, Abdul Hafeez Harary, at a press conference at the Press Club on Monday.

He claimed that flour shortage was being experienced in small towns and cities due to smuggling. The situation worsened due to hoarding of the commodity by big stockists and millowners. The price of flour went up due to artificial shortage created by them, said Mr Harary.

He claimed that 500 to 700 truckloads of wheat and flour were being smuggled to Afghanistan daily via Attock and Rajanpur check posts. He alleged that a Sheikhupura flour miller had recently sold 2,000 wheat bags to an Afghan trader and received the whole amount in cash.

He claimed that an Afghan trader told him that flour was being sold for Rs18 per kilogram in Afghanistan whereas it was Rs11 per kg in Pakistan. He said a large number of Afghan traders have been visiting various Punjab cities to purchase flour.

Meanwhile, a food department official told this scribe that the department was regularly supplying prescribed quota of wheat to the mills. The millers sold flour to Afghan traders to earn more profit.