PESHAWAR, April 12: Foreign goods worth more than Rs1.5 million are smuggled to other parts of the country daily in connivance with the customs officials and other law enforcement agencies.
This was disclosed by several owners of Lahore-bound passenger buses, while talking to Dawn at the general bus stand on Tuesday.
Requesting anonymity, they said that they could not run their buses without carrying smuggled items to Punjab, because the profit on fares against their huge investment was next to nil.
They said that about 60 buses went to Lahore daily carrying on average Rs25,000 worth of smuggled items each. Some buses carry more than Rs100,000 worth of foreign goods and some leave only with the passengers. “It depends on contacts and luck,” a bus owner said.
He said that after the shooting by the customs squad at a passenger bus near Nowshera, in which two persons were killed and four were injured, there was only one customs checkpoint, at Kund.
“We have to pay at the Kund checkpoint if we carry foreign goods or not,” he alleged. “Every passenger bus pays Rs200 to Rs500 at the check post,” he alleged and added that various police station also extorted money during the journey.
The bus owners said the price of a 45-seater air-conditioned passenger bus was Rs4 million, which was normally purchased from the dealer on Rs60,000 per month instalments, with Rs1.5 million down payment.The fare from Peshawar to Lahore was Rs190 but from half of the passengers they got Rs150 after bargaining, they said.
They also pay about Rs2,000 to contractors at the bus stand here and Rs3,000 at Lahore. The two-way diesel expenditure was about Rs6,000 and after giving away the salaries of the driver and cleaners, nothing could be earned, they said.
“Our main income source is carrying foreign items to Lahore. Sometimes we earn more than Rs5,000 on a trip and sometimes less than Rs 2,000,” an owner said.
They denied smuggling narcotics and said they could not take any risk against their huge investments.
A passenger, Mohammad Arshad, who works for a printing press in Lahore, said: “The Lahore-bound passenger buses are plying on the roads just to transport the foreign goods. The checking of passengers and buses by the customs squads is done to get bribe according to the worth of the foreign goods. I haven’t seen a single seizure of foreign items, except when they launch a special campaign. Otherwise they just mint money, creating agony for the genuine passengers.”
Redi Gul, a foreign goods carrier hailing from Khyber Agency, said: “Normally I carry two to three rolls of foreign cloth to Lahore. I get Rs3 per metre of the cloth. My earning from a trip is Rs400 to Rs600 after paying money to customs and police officials.”
“The carriers and bus owners get the foreign items from agents, who reach contracts with the Punjab buyers in the Bara markets . They get Rs6 per metre of cloth and hand it over to us at the bus stand. We carry the cloth with the assurance that if it is impounded, we would pay the price,” he said.
Anti-Smuggling Assistant Commissioner Samiullah denied the charges of bribery on the customs squad at Kund and said there was no proof of corruption. He said no action could be taken against the staff without proof.