KARACHI: Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Karachi yesterday [Aug 5] from Dhahran on a six-day visit to Pakistan. ...

The Saudi Minister is visiting Pakistan at the Invitation of Vice-Admiral A.R. Khan. Prince Sultan, who is heading a delegation, will leave for Rawalpindi today. The Mecca Radio quoted Prince Sultan as saying he intended to become acquainted with Pakistani technological progress, particularly in the military sphere, and to secure Pakistani help in developing the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces.

[Meanwhile, as reported by our correspondent in Peshawar,] new tyres smuggled from Afghanistan into Peshawar by land route via Khyber Pass and Torkham during the last six months were valued at Rs 1.90 crore. This was disclosed by Customs officials here [Aug 5].

Two of the arrested smugglers, Abdul Rashid and Hasan Khan, stated that the drivers who were taking Pakistani trucks to Kabul brought back with them new tyres mounted in their trucks instead of old ones. This trafficking continued for over six months.

When this device was detected by the Customs staff, it started to note down the numbers of the tyres of the outgoing trucks in the checking books. For some time then the smuggling seemed to have had stopped. However, during last two months it was reported that the smuggled tyres were again being sold in large numbers but the Customs people were unable to detect the method of smuggling.

The accused persons, however, revealed that the truck owners or drivers taking the trucks from Peshawar to Kabul managed to erase the numbers of the new tyres in Kabul and instead they put the Customs numbers on them and replaced them at will.

Bearing the same numbers as in the Customs check books, they could not be hauled up.

A machine was however seized by the Customs here on Thursday which was used for the purpose and the racket was exposed.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2017