Fayaz Bukhari
Trade Facilitation Centre, Uri, Feb 10: The Indo-Pak scanners on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector failed to pick up the drugs haul that was concealed in orange cartons and recovered thorough physical checking by security staff of the Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday here.
The Trade Facilitation Officer (TFO) at Salamabad, Showkat Ahmad Rather told Excelsior that scanners didn’t detect the brown sugar packets concealed in the orange cartons. “When the contraband was recovered from a couple of orange cartons, we scanned the rest of the cartons but scanner didn’t detect these drugs. Finally when we physically checked these carton drugs were recovered from them”, he said.
Rather said that the Pakistani authorities had also scanned these orange cartons before allowing their cross over through the LoC trade but those scanners also didn’t pick these drugs up.
And as the trade standoff continues at the LoC since the recovery of over 9 kilograms of brown sugar from a Pakistani truck on Friday, the drivers and the traders are a worried lot.
Over 250 trucks with 210 of them loaded with bananas are standing outside Salamabad Trade Facilitation Centre in Uri. Traders said that these bananas are worth over Rs 8 crore and if the trade does not resume in a couple of days all this fresh fruit will rot.
A trader, Ashfaq Ahmad, whose four banana trucks are standing at Uri for cross over is a worried man. “I will lose lakhs of rupees if trade doesn’t resume in a couple of days. I am not the only trader, others will also lose lakhs of rupees”, he said.
The 21 Pakistani trucks are standing at TFC Salamabad and their drivers are a worried lot. Mohammad Ashraf of Haitan in PoK told Excelsior that he has not spoken to his family since Friday. The drivers were basking in the sun and playing cricket with the security staff at the TFC Salamabad while waiting for the end to standoff.
Ashraf said that the arrested driver is an innocent man as he has no knowledge about the drug haul since the drug was concealed in orange cartons packed in Peshawar. He said that the driver is the only bread winner of the family of seven and demanded his release.
In the meantime, the relatives and well wishers of the driver Syed Inayat Hussain Shah, resident of Kumikote Muzaffarabad who was arrested on Friday by Police in Salamabad after drugs were recovered from his truck released 50 trucks which they had stopped at Muree in Pakistan. They were demanding that traders should pay Rs 60 lakhs to the arrested driver’s family and the owner of the seized truck. The traders today paid Rs 15 lakh to them and they released the trucks carrying the goods.
The reports also said that the Chief Secretary of the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) has suspended the TFO Chakoti and his staff for their failure to stop smuggling of narcotics through the cross LoC trade.
And the trade standoff of continued for the fifth day today with no breakthrough after yesterday’s meeting. This is not for the first time that there was any stand off on the LoC due to recovery of narcotics. On January 17 last year, Police seized 114 packets of brown sugar from a truck (RIS-2137) driven by Mohammad Shafiq of Sarwar Muzaffarabad in Salamabad Uri.
27 Indian trucks along with their drivers were detained by Pakistan and they didn’t allow their own 48 Pakistani trucks and their drivers to return for about three weeks. However, the matter was later resolved by the External Affairs Ministries of both the countries and the trucks and drivers were allowed to cross to their respective countries except the driver from whose truck the brown sugar was recovered.
India and Pakistan started cross LoC trade in Jammu and Kashmir from Uri in Kashmir and Chakan-da-Bagh in Jammu in 2006, a year after Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service was started in April 2005 first time after the partition.
Follow our WhatsApp channel