PESHAWAR, Feb 16: Traders involved in the Pak-Afghan transit trade have demanded early recovery of 15 lorries of the National Logistic Cell (NLC) reportedly hijacked last week by unidentified armed men in Gambela, an area of Lakki Marwat.

Gul Afzal Shinwari, President of the Pak-Afghan Trader’s Group, told Dawn on Friday that during the last one week 16 lorries carrying precious goods of millions of rupees were on their way to Peshawar from Karachi when some unidentified armed men hijacked them in Gambela.

Quoting the driver of one of the hijacked lorries, who managed to reach the NLC station in Amangarh, Mr Shinwari said the armed men took the vehicles to an unknown destination.

He quoted the driver as saying that the hijackers first off-loaded 265 bundles of cloths from the lorry and then released him along with his vehicle.

The driver later got a case registered with police station concerned about the hijacking of the lorry. However, he said, there was no information about the whereabouts of the remaining vehicles.

He said the NLC, despite being a subsidiary to the army, had also failed to provide security to the transit goods, for which the traders paid over Rs95,000 per lorry.

Mr Shinwari said that the traders were the main sufferers of the ongoing situation, adding that on the one hand they lost goods worth millions of rupees while on the other, the Customs Department was pressurizing them to pay the customs duty against the hijacked goods.

He appealed to President Pervez Musharraf to immediately intervene in the matter and provide security to transit goods, otherwise, the country would lose billions of rupees in revenue earned through the business sector.

Mr Shinwari also expressed fears that the transit business would be further damaged, if it was shifted from Peshawar dry port to Jamrud, tehsil of the Khyber Agency, as had been directed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

He said that the transit trade business should not be shifted to tribal areas as the NLC lorries were not safe even in settled areas. When contacted, an officer at the NLC Amangarh station expressed ignorance about the incident.