GILGIT, July 25: Traders belonging to the Northern Areas Importers and Exporters Association continued their strike for the seventh day on Sunday against the newly imposed Dassu Development Tax , which is being charged by the Kohistan district administration at district headquarters Dassu along the Karakoram Highway on trucks coming from Sust.

The representatives of the association, Jauher Ali Raki, Shabbir Wali and Shahid Ali, told journalists that due to the new tax their trucks loaded with the Chinese goods were being charged at the rate of Rs25,000 each which was a clear violation of taxation laws as traders were supposed to pay the duties at Sust customs checkpoint before entering Pakistani territorial limits.

"The Kohistan administration is reluctant to entertain our requests and even rejects the receipts of customs duty payments and bill of entries being cleared at Sust," they said.

They added that even though the contractor at Dassu actually charged Rs25,000 against clearance of each truck they were given a payment receipt of Rs3,674 under the head of Kohistan Development Fee.

On Sunday, at least 200 trucks laden with Chinese goods were standing in Gilgit against the collection of this new tax and traders said they would dump their goods at Khunjerab Pass if this new tax was not abolished.

Traders said they had already paid Rs20 million customs duty in Sust and their goods worth Rs3 billion were stranded due to this new duty. "We are compelled to pay Rs1,000 each as haltage charges to truck drivers and for the last one week they had incurred Rs1.4 million in terms of haltage duty," they said.

They said their negotiations with Kohistan administration ended inconclusive on Sunday and they would dump all the imported goods at Chinese border near Khunjerab Pass and ask the government to remove Pakistan customs checkpoint from Sust.

They argued that in 1998 the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had abolished all the inter-district octroi duties and it was "illegal" that Kohistan administration had been charging this duty.

When contacted, an official of the customs said "the new duty collection in the name of Kohistan Development Fee at Dassu is illegal and against the customs laws as they are already levying duties on imported goods in Sust and then give traders clearance to forward their goods."

The official said he had already intimated the CBR regarding the collection of this illegal tax at Dassu which has disturbed the border trade in the Northern Areas.