LAHORE: The Special Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling has asked the witnesses for recording their statements on 10 July in the case of smuggling of expensive and historical statues from Lahore into Bangkok.
A case of statues smuggling was scheduled for hearing before the special court where Muhammad Shakeel, after hearing the arguments of the lawyers of customs court, asked the witnesses to record their statements on 10th of July.
The customs had registered cases against three accused including Ammar, Gulzar and Muhammad Hassan. They were arrested on the charge of smuggling of 50 antique dolls, 313 costly coins and two plates of Mughal era.
Two customs officials were also arrested for helping the smuggling of these items. They had got bails from the court.
The Customs Court hand 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, another accused of the case, Ammar, has been released on a pre-arrest bail. He was involved in smuggling of these statues from Peshawar to Lahore and then intended to smuggle them into Bangkok.
The smuggling of statues from Pakistan is a very notorious case. A number of high officials from different departments are allegedly involved in this act. Some customs officials are also involved in smuggling of these statues by facilitating the smugglers at the airport. They have been investigated by the customs investigation authorities and even some of the officials were arrested.
