KARACHI, Nov 24: A team of the Karachi city government carried out a raid on a warehouse in the Gulbai area on Wednesday and seized 85,000 sugar bags. Each bag contains 50 kilos of sugar.

The raid was carried out by the city government team and the area police near a weighbridge in the Gulbai area. Dawn

The executive district officer (revenue), Mustafa Jamal Qazi, who carried out the raid, told that his team found some watchmen who later allowed the city government team to enter the premises.

“We broke open the lock of the warehouse and found innumerable bags of sugar there,” he said, adding that legally he could only seal the warehouse and not confiscate the whole lot and release it out for the benefit of the people.

He said that no magisterial powers had so far been delegated to the revenue officers of the city government.

The competent authorities would now be approached to allow the district administration to sell the seized sugar in local markets at rate fixed by the Sindh government. Another proposal could be that the owners of the hoarded sugar were allowed, after getting certain undertakings from them, to bring out the commodity immediately in the open market and supply it to dealers for onward marketing, he added.

Last week, the city government had seized 158,000 bags containing hoarded sugar in Korangi. The quantity of sugar sealed in the raids on the Korangi and Gulbai areas is estimated at around 11.5 million tonnes.