KARACHI: The Special Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling on Thursday reserved its verdict on the bail pleas of three suspects who are behind the bars in a case pertaining to the pilferage of Lahore-bound cargo that contained goods worth Rs 304 million.
Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi heard arguments from defence and prosecution side, and reserved the judgment to be pronounced during the course of the day; however, it was not announced till filing of this report.
According to the prosecution, Pakistan Customs’ Anti-Smuggling Organization (ASO) raided a godown in the city’s Site area and seized a huge quantity of imported goods.
The seized goods included 27,217 mobile phones of assorted brands, 1,695 pieces assorted tablets notepad, 46,979 pieces of contact lenses, 2,007 perfumes, 214 LED TVs, 10,060 kilogram pencil erasers, 73 washing machines, 122 pieces of DVD players, 182 dry irons, 750 Samsung mobile phone batteries, 15 refrigerators, 196,000 feather blades 196,000, 172,000 cotton stick.
A transshipment cargo in a container bearing No EITU-1135555 was taken from the port area under transshipment permit (TP) to be cleared at Lahore Dry Port but instead of taking it to the upcountry dry port the same was taken to the godown in the city. At this godown, the higher duty goods were being offloaded and the container was being stuffed with low duty goods.
The Customs authorities had taken Munawar Hussain, Shahid and Imran into custody and registered FIR against them and their accomplices.
