Weapons Trail: Karachi being used as supply line for smuggled arms: SC

The SC bench told the constitution of a commission to check imports of smuggled arms and ammunition in huge amounts.

KARACHI:

The Supreme Court observed on Thursday that Karachi had become a supply line through which smuggled and sophisticated arms were sold to militant outfits involved in fighting security forces in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa.

A larger bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, made this observation. Referring to a report of a commission regarding the missing Nato containers, the bench noted that at least 19,000 containers full of arms, ammunitions, liquor, and other goods had disappeared in the country. The bench summoned Customs chief collector Muhammad Yahya, who said he had no knowledge about the arms being smuggled into the country, and the monitoring system had been made strict.

The SC bench suggested the constitution of a commission to check imports of smuggled arms and ammunitions in huge quantity, tax evasion by importers through non-declaration of imports and release of the containers without proper checking.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2013.