LAHORE: The Special Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling has recorded the statements of witnesses and adjourned the case for October 9. Earlier, the court had asked the witnesses about the smuggling of expensive and historical statues from Lahore into Bangkok.
A case of statues’ smuggling had been scheduled for hearing before the special court where Tahir Sabir, after hearing the arguments of the lawyers, adjourned the case for next week.
The customs had registered a case against three accused including Ammar, Gulzar and Muhammad Hassan. They were arrested on the charges of smuggling of 50 antique dolls, 313 costly coins and two plates as well of Mogul era.
Two customs officials were also apprehended on the charges of abetting to smuggle these items. They got bails from the court.
The customs court ordered the customs authorities to hand over these statues to the management of the Lahore Fort for keeping them in the museum.
On the other hand, other accused of the case, Ammar, was released on pre-arrest bail. He was involved in smuggling of these statues from Peshawar into Lahore and then intended to smuggle them into Bangkok.
Meanwhile on Monday, 12 other cases were also scheduled for hearing before the customs court. Most of the cases were adjourned without any proceedings because of unavailability of the parties and lawyers concerned.
A case of an accused, held from Sialkot in mobile smuggling case, was also scheduled for the day that was adjourned for next week. Another case of tax evasion of Gujranwala was also postponed for next Thursday where the court demanded witnesses in the court.
