PESHAWAR, Feb 28: A large number of people, mostly youths, are working here for smugglers as carriers of smuggled goods.
These people, apparently driven by abject poverty, transport goods from smugglers' dens to bus terminals in the city for their onward dispatch to other parts of the country.
"The problem is so acute that there are thousands of carriers (called Gandamar in Pushto) who from part of a parallel system," said a senior police officer. Such people transporting illegal goods stuffed in large cartons tied with ropes on the back seat of motorcycles are a common sight in the city-with police and customs personnel acting as silent spectators.
Several of the young carriers disguise themselves as disabled persons to transport goods in especially designed tri-cycles from tribal areas, on the outskirts of Peshawar, to warehouses set up in homes and hotels located near the main bus terminal.
Covering his face and head with a dirty piece of cloth to avoid identification, Mumtaz Khan, 23, transports smuggled goods worth hundreds of thousands of rupees to the city's main bus terminal every day.
Khan, hailing from Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, is one of hundreds of motorbike riders who are posing a serious problem to law-enforcement agencies and road-users in the provincial capital.
There are between 100 and 150 such carriers who risk their lives by dangerously riding two-wheelers on busy routes, transporting the contraband from smugglers' warehouses in Jamrud and Acheeni Bala Bara's tribal areas near Peshawar every day.
"Certainly, it requires a lot of expertise and high degree of skill to drive a two-wheeler carrying heavy cartons", says Khan, who does not use helmet, because he thinks it restricts his head's movement. Several riders, he says, suffer serious injuries in road accidents.
Naushad Khan, a shop-keeper in Peshawar's Bara market, says that a carrier working for him has been in hospital for 15 days because of serious injuries he suffered after he lost control of his bike on way to the bus terminal. The young carrier, he adds, had been hit by a stone hurled by police when he tried to speed away defying their signal to stop.
A young commuter, S S Taj Alam, had succumbed to his injuries on January 17. While crossing a road, he was hit by a speedy motor-bike carrying a large quantity of smuggled items. Similarly, a carrier on a tri-cycle was crushed to death in December last year by a speeding mini-bus on the busy Sher Shah Suri road in front of the Peshawar Press Club.
"I can provide you details of seizures we made by taking on the carriers in areas falling under the jurisdictions of Pishtakhara and Hayatabad police stations," says Abid Ali, senior-superintendent police, Peshawar. But, he adds, the entire police force can not be deputed to handle this one task. "We can't tackle the issue by leaving aside all other responsibilities," says Mr Ali. Naushad Khan says he is in the business because he has no other means to earn a living for his family.
"What will I do to feed my family of eight if I stop doing this," says Khan, who on an average earns Rs1000 a day at the rate of Rs250 per trip. Carriers using by-cycles get Rs120 to Rs130 for every successful trip.
Like several of his compatriots, the bearded Khan makes Rs15,000 to Rs16,000 a month of which he pays Rs6,000 as rent of the Yamaha motorcycle that he uses in transportation of the contrabands.
Information gathered from business circles of Karkhano markets reveal that carriers form only a small part of a big network that is engaged in the smuggling business.
From ordinary carriers to resourceful smugglers and from lower grade staff of law-enforcement agencies to some senior officers are said to be in the network. "We can't go after every Gandamar, says a police officer. The police, he adds, nabs carriers if they come across them on the road.
Khan says that although he had never been caught by police, his friends managed to get themselves released after greasing some people's palm. "Once caught, you will never get your goods back, but money can easily get you freed," says Farzand Afridi, another Gandamar.
Surprisingly, the customs authorities, whose main job is to curb smuggling, appear nowhere in the picture. "Under the CBR's new anti-smuggling policy devised in July last we act against smugglers only when we have information about an attempt to smuggle "goods," says a Peshawar-based senior officer of the customs department.
The official claims that the department had confiscated huge quantities of smuggled goods over the past couple of months. Dozens of trucks and buses loaded with such items were impounded while they were on way south from Peshawar, says the officer. "But without information we do not act in the light of CBR's standing instructions," says the officer.