LANDI KOTAL: After two years, smuggling of foreign goods from Afghanistan to Pakistan by carriers has resumed via Bazaar-Zakhakhel route.

Many locals believe that the authorities turned a blind eye to the reopening of the route on Thursday so that the Zakhakhel tribe could generate funds for the lashkar it raised in April to counter the anti-state Lashkar-i-Islam of Mangal Bagh.

They recalled that security forces, in collaboration with the Khyber Agency’s political administration, had plugged all the smuggling routes from Bazaar-Zakhakhel to Bara and Jamrud in September 2009 to conduct a military operation on intelligence reports that the illegal trade was financing the outlawed militant groups in Bara.

They said that militant groups had not only established a number of illegal checkposts en-route from Bazaar-Zakhakhel to Bara, but had also been forcing the carriers to use their vehicles for transportation of smuggled goods coming from Afghanistan.

“The monthly income from this illegal trade is in millions of rupees,” said a carrier requesting anonymity for his personal security.

A senior official of the political administration told Dawn that income from illegal octroi imposed on smuggled goods was the second major source of income for the banned organisation after poppy trade.

Soon after the Bazaar-Zakhakhel route was closed, the smugglers discovered a new, and cheaper, Shalman Khula-Enzari Kandao-Landi Kotal route.

“The cost of transportation fell almost half as most of the route was useable for all types of vehicles and there was no fear of confiscation by outlawed groups,” confided another carrier, who also opted not to be named.

“We had good working relationship with the FC personnel posted at various checkpoints from Torkhum border to Karkhano market in Peshawar,” he said.

A temporary suspension of the illegal trade at Enzari Kandao compelled the smugglers to use the Kabul River for their illegal trade, thus bringing the smuggled goods in small boats from Shalman Khula up to Malagori.

But all of a sudden, smuggling via the Tabai-Bazaar Zakhakhel-Bara/Ali Masjid route resumed on Thursday, with the authorities’ ignoring the illegal business.

The security forces have only recently re-established checkpoints at Tabai, which is the receipt point for carriers after smuggled goods are brought from Gurhuku village in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.

Electronics dealer Hussain Ali told this correspondent that over a dozen trucks loaded with electric appliances were now stranded across the Torkhum border as the reopened Tabai route was not fit for transporting such fragile items.

Other dealers said that while electronics goods were stuck across the border, hundreds of mules loaded with fabric rolls, tyres, auto parts, tea, Indian medicines reached the warehouses in Jamrud and Bara.

In the meantime, the Khyber Rifles and Khasadars have intensified joint checking at the main Torkhum entry point.

“They even confiscate personal electronic gadgets like laptops, digital cameras, mobile phones etc,” said an employee of a customs clearing office.

He alleged that the security personnel were involved in minting money by using illegal means.