KARACHI: The Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation-FBR, Karachi has yet not finalised the fate of the case in which the Anti-Smuggling Organisation (ASO) seized six trucks of imported fabric from the godown located in Allahwala Market near Lucknow Plaza.
Reliable sources informed Customs Today that the Director I&I Karachi Asif Marghoob Siddiqui on Friday held a meeting with the officers at his office.
“During the meeting, all aspects of the case were discussed thoroughly and it was decided that a final action against the importers of the seized fabric would be taken at the earliest”, they added.
Responding to a query, sources did not rule out the option of registering an FIR against the importers. It is pertinent to mention here that a team of ASO on last Sunday raided a godown located near Lucknow Plaza in Allahwala Market and seized 6 trucks of imported fabric.
During the course of investigation, it was transpired that the fabric was smuggled from India, Korea and China, as the importers had failed to produce the import documents of the fabric consignments.
It may be mentioned here that the Customs I&I further claimed that the stamps of Afghan transit trade were also found on some of the bundles of seized fabric consignments.
Subsequently, the Directorate General of I&I had given appropriate time to the importers in order to produce import documents of the seized fabric and did not move the seized fabric trucks to the Customs I&I warehouse located in Rasheedabad.
However; despite passing five days, the importers could not produce import documents of the imported fabric. On the other hand, the Cloth Merchants’ Association had staged a protest against the raid.
The association termed the raid as illegal and baseless, while the ASO officers were of the view that they had orders of Judicial Magistrate to raid the godown.
