The customs department is planning to take Interpol in the loop to bust international racket involved in antiques smuggling from Pakistan. Speaking at a press conference at the AFU, Chief Collector Zahid Khokar along with Collector Preventive Tariq Huda, Additional Collector Dr Tahir Qureshi and officials from the Archaeology Department said the customs department had expanded the level of investigation and planning to take Interpol on board to bust international racket involved in antiques smugglings from Pakistan.
While acknowledging the efforts of its AFU staff, he said customs officials had made biggest-ever antiques seizure at the AFU and added that the recovered items would be sent to the museum after the investigation is over. According to details, the AFU staff after receiving the information that high valuable antiques would be smuggled to some Far East country had ensured strict check on the flights to that region.
On 17-12-2015, the Customs staff of Model Customs Collectorate of Preventive posted at International Departure, Jinnah International Airport, Karachi intercepted four passengers Raheel Shakeel, Muhammad Javed, Irfan Ahmad and Faisal Jamal along with 11 baggage after having been passed through the ASF Baggage Scanning machines.
The examination of their baggage was conducted after completion of all legal formalities but nothing objectionable was recovered from nine packages, however, examination of two wooden boxes led the recovery of ancient articles of metals, statues, stone leaves, pottery statues, bangles, which were said to be precious metal studded with stones and Iron Blades etc belonging to very old age and pre-historic era. These items may fall within the specification of antiquities.
Therefore, both the wooden boxes were detained for examination and expert opinion as well as valuation by the Archaeological Department, Government of Sindh. Subsequently, a letter was sent to the Director of Archaeological Department, Government of Sindh at Karachi for physical examination of the objects and expert opinion with regard to the status, confirmation and valuation, etc.
A team of three experts of Archaeology Department visited International Departure, JIAP on 18-12-2015 and conducted examination of the said objects and finally Superintendent, Culture Department, National Museum of Pakistan, Government of Sindh, Karachi submitted his report whereby, it has been confirmed that the said items were of antiquity and belonged to the pre-historic era worth about $10 million, thus falls within the purview of Antiquities Act, 1975". Accused passengers have been arrested and FIR lodged.
Comments
Comments are closed.