KARACHI: The customs court has granted the bail plea of Muhammad Ali Chandna, a prime suspect in import of banned antibiotics against the security deposit of Rs 6 million.
According to details, the accused Muhammad Ali Chandna, who was arrested by the Research and Development (R&D) Section of MCC-Appraisement (East) in his alleged involvement in importing banned antibiotics from India and other parts of the world has succeeded to get bail from Customs court.
The accused was arrested by the R&D team in the start of this month and got 10day remand from Customs court. Meanwhile, the accused moved Sindh High Court (SHC) for granting bail, but his bail plea was rejected by the honorable court on the evidences presented by the Customs authorities into the case.
The R&D sources informed Customs Today that they are still investigating the case from all aspects and will reach at the conclusion with the passage of time.
The R&D sources termed it “a test case” in the history of Pakistan Customs and utilizing all their available resources in order to sort out the case.
Sources further disclosed that the customs has initially booked the intender-cum-importer Muhammad Ali Chandna in evasion of duty/taxes amounting Rs 16million and further scrutinizing the import data will certainly increase the amount of evaded duty/taxes.
“The high ups of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Chief Collector-Appraisement (South) Nasir Masroor Ahmed are taking keen interest into the case and assured their all out support to the intelligence officials/officers in connection with the resolution of the case”, sources added.
The sources further confirmed that the customs authorities will not give the safe passages to the criminal elements who are involved in importing banned antibiotics from other foreign countries and utilize their resources to book all suspects allegdly involved in the said crime.
It is pertinent to mention here that the case was first detected by the AIB Branch of MCC-Appraisement (West), last year in which it found that the importer Ziauddin of Chemi Zone and Rajab Ali, clearing agent were involved in importing the banned antibiotic Cefixime from India.
Subsequently, the AIB Branch registered an FIR against the accused, but they had already granted protective bail from court.
Afterwards, Chief Collector-Appraisement (South) Nasir Masroor Ahmed on the said information reacted promptly and directed the authorities concerned of both the field formation Collectorates i.e. MCC-Appraisement (East) and MCC-Appraisement (West) to start thorough investigation into the case.
Later, the investigation of the intelligence officials of the collectorates found that the alleged accused have cleared around 80 consignments of the banned antibiotics during the time 2012-2014.
It may be worth mentioning here that the clearance of the said banned antibiotic could not be possible with the connivance of Customs officials.
Now, it would be matter of concerns that the FBR would take any legal action against those Customs officials who are found involved in clearance of banned antibiotics.
