THERE was a touch of Hollywood to the way our customs authorities dealt with smugglers in the 1960s — nothing could escape the hawk-eyed officers. On Sept 13, 1967 they seized 700 tolas of gold from a girl at Karachi airport. She was flying to Dacca, East Pakistan, under a pseudonym.

Before she boarded the plane she was asked to open her vanity box that she was hand-carrying, and what came out was pure gold.

The girl was the daughter of a shipping agent who lived in England. She, on the other hand, lived in Karachi with her younger brother in a Clifton apartment. Upon interrogation, it was found out that the girl was linked to a well-knit gang of smugglers that employed young attractive women.

It all happened after the collector of customs received a nugget of information about an attempt to be made to illegally smuggle gold from Karachi. A special staff was posted at the airport since early morning. No other airport employee knew why the special staff was there. Then a well-dressed girl with a red vanity box entered the domestic lounge (domestic: because back then Dacca was part of Pakistan) and was about to board the aircraft when she was nabbed.

This was how 50 years back air traffic was prevented from getting affected by dubious, uncalled-for activities. The situation on the ground, too, had begun to improve. Or so it seemed. On Sept 16, the Central Statistical Office released a survey document according to which, with the increase in the number of motor vehicles in the city the ratio of road accidents per 100 vehicles had sharply declined from 145.5 to 22.7 in a decade (1957-1966). The ratio of fatal accidents per 100 vehicles decreased from 0.4 in 1957 to 0.2 in 1966. The number of serious and minor accidents per 100 vehicles came down from 0.7 to 0.3 and from 5.3 to 0.5 during the same period.

The study would have made the city authorities pretty chuffed who were, at the time, busy with an important assignment at the Father of the Nation’s mausoleum. On Sept 11, the media reported that the Quaid-i-Azam Memorial Committee had approved the design for a mosque to be built adjacent to the mausoleum. The mosque would cover an area of about 5,370 square feet and take two years to complete. Work on the project was supposed to begin once the committee had approved the detailed estimates.

The same day, Sept 11, a biography of Mr Jinnah titled Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah — The Story of a Nation by G. Allana was launched at Hotel Intercontinental. Shedding light on the genesis of the book, the author said the idea for the biography was initiated by the late Madar-i-Millat Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah some time back. Later, at her behest he himself undertook the task and completed it after going through the various aspects of the life and mission of the Quaid-i-Azam. Ms Jinnah rendered assistance to the writer and divulged to him some interesting facts about the Quaid.

The book must have enhanced the knowledge of readers, especially the younger lot, about Mr Jinnah. Speaking of the young ones, on Sept 15 it was announced that the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Karachi would switch to the system of ‘objective testing’ for class IX and X examinations in the then ongoing academic session. This meant that while one half of examinations would consist of regular questions, the other half would have multiple choice questions and questions where students would be asked to fill in the blanks. Well, in 2017 some students in Karachi are faced with questions of a totally different kind.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2017