LAHORE: Inspector General Punjab Police while taking action against the police official of Kot Ladha Police Station has suspended the responsible who implicated Principal Appraiser Azizur Rehman Malik of Lahore Dry Port in a fake murder case. The Appraiser had unearthed Rs 1 billion mis-declartion of silicon-electrical steel sheets of clearing agent M/s Ikram International Services.
This was stated by Collector of Customs Zahid Khokhar while talking to Customs Today.
“Although our Principal Appraiser has been released, it has become tough in such circumstances to work and come over corruption on account of mis-declaration of imported goods when the port officials are deliberately implicated in false cases on the directions of the tax evaders to settle their grudges,” the collector regretted.
Khokhar added that Model Customs Collectorate of Appraisement Lahore has detected gross mis-declaration of silicon-electrical steel sheets committed by unscrupulous importers and clearing agent M/s Ikram International Services at Mughalpura Dry Port through fraudulent means causing huge loss to the national exchequer amounting to over Rs 1 billion.
Khokhar said that Principal Appraiser Azizur Rehman Malik of AIB, the Investigation and Prosecution Branch of the Collectorate, played a pivotal role in detection of the case on June 4, 2014. The Principal Appraiser had also made six contravention cases involving Rs 18.5 million during last three weeks, and got registered three criminal cases against the importers concerned as well as the above mentioned customs clearing agent.
He informed that the importers in connivance with the said clearing agent forwarded fake samples along with fake letters of Assistant Controller Customs to different laboratories to get favourable test reports. The Collector added that some policemen nabbed Azizur Rehman near M.A.O. College and took him to Kot Ladha Police Station, 30 km from Gujranwala, on account of an old murder case lodged in 2005 against unknown persons.
Khokhar said the Collectorate informed Member Customs, the whole situation accordingly. The Collectorate brought into the Member’s notice that the owner/proprietor of the clearing agency, Ikramul Haq Bhatti, who reportedly belonged to the same area, had been declared absconder and he along with his accomplice, the importer concerned was recommended to be placed on the Exit Control List. Meanwhile his license had already been suspended on May 27, 2014.
He said that after taking cognizance of those mis-declarations and subsequent strict measures by Pakistan Customs, the importers had stopped this practice and started to declare correctly their imported steel products as Steel Sheets plated or coated with zinc/tin etc., attracting 20 per cent rate of customs duty instead of Silicon Electrical Steel attracting zero per cent customs duty.
In this way, the Collectorate had succeeded in generating due revenue on these products. He said further investigations of all such previous consignments were underway in the Collectorate. While in some cases, criminal proceedings had also been initiated against M/s. Ikram International Services.
The Collector said that soon after knowing arrest of the Principal Appraiser, he contacted the police high-ups including the IG Punjab Police and got him released from the police custody.
