KARACHI: The Special Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling has put off until December 2 the bail pleas of three suspects who are behind bars in a case pertaining to the pilferage of Lahore-bound cargo that contained goods worth Rs 304 million.
Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi adjourned the case due to absence of the investigation officer of the case. The court asked the defence and prosecution sides to forward their arguments over the bail applications of the accused on the next hearing.
According to the prosecution, Pakistan Customs’ Anti-Smuggling Organization 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, 1695 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, 196000 feather blades 196,000, 172000 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 their custody from the premises of the godown and registered an FIR against them and other their accomplices.
