Exporter receives death threats

Trader involved in exporting goods to Afghanistan approaches the police for protection after receiving threats.

PESHAWAR: A trader involved in exporting goods to Afghanistan has approached the city police for protection after receiving threatening calls and letters.

Police said that Altaf Hamid of the Lahori Gate, Peshawar, had filed an application at the Gulbahar police station on October 2 in which the man contended that two unidentified men had visited him at his home and told him that they were Nato suppliers and asked him to stop exporting to Afghanistan.

According to Altaf, those men warned him that if he did not discontinue exports, they would either kidnap his family or kill them and bomb his home. The police said that Altaf had asked them to provide him and his family with adequate security. A senior police official said that they were investigating the matter.

Altaf told The Express Tribune that this was the second time that he had received threats over the past 45 days.

Earlier, he said, he had received an undated anonymous letter, warning him against exporting to Afghanistan.

“I didn’t take it seriously (at first). I thought that someone may be playing a prank,” he said, adding that a week ago two bearded men had visited his house and told him to stop his exports to Afghanistan. He said that he told them that he had nothing to do with the Nato supplies and that he supplied food items like ghee, rice, vegetables and furniture for Afghan people. Altaf said that he had not yet heard anything positive from the police.

The incident came to the surface following the suspension of allied forces’ supplies to Afghanistan after Nato forces violated the Pakistani border, killing at least three soldiers and leaving three others injured.

In the past weeks, Nato supplies had been attacked twice, in Shikarpur, where 30 tankers were torched and near Islamabad, where five persons were also killed.

About two months ago, militants in the Landi Kotal tehsil of Khyber Agency had distributed pamphlets, threatening everyone involved in transporting Nato supplies with “beheadings”.

Locals told The Express Tribune that since then, three brothers transporting Nato supplies were killed in Landikotal while another man was murdered last week.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2010.