KARACHI, Nov 7: The Pakistan Post Office has withdrawn the special postage stamps of Rs100 denomination issued last week to raise money for the victims of the Oct 8 earthquake.

Sources told Dawn that that the PPO had initially said that the entire sale proceeds would go towards the President’s Relief Fund.

The sources said that under the PPO by-laws the amount of money printed on the postage stamps must go to the kitty of the postal department.

“In this case, the postage stamps cost Rs32, which should have gone to the postal department under the law. But then it was also mentioned that the entire proceeds of the issue would go towards the relief fund. This caused a great deal of confusion in the postal department. As a result, the sale of the postage stamps was suspended,” they said.

The sources said that at a high-level meeting held in Islamabad, the communications minister had said that he would get the issue sorted out at the earliest.

They recalled that a couple of months back the postal department had also withdrawn the postage stamps issued to mark the coming of the Japanese prime minister.

They said that the postage stamps were withdrawn when the visiting prime minister postponed his trip. They said that the postage stamps were afterwards reissued.