Intra-Kashmir trading resumes, dispute over levy lingers

Customs police had captured 14 trucks last week that reportedly refused to pay bribes.

MUZAFFARABAD: Intra-Kashmir trade restarted on Tuesday as the row between the customs department and traders, over the payment of custom duties, continues.

Up to 49 trucks, loaded with carpets and dry fruits, crossed to the other side of the line of control (LoC), while 77 trucks, stacked with coconut, red chilies and spices, crossed into Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) from Indian Kashmir after a week of suspended trade. The services were suspended in protest against the traded goods being seized by the custom police in Islamabad.

The customs police had captured 14 out of some 100 trucks of coconut and red chilies bartered though weekly truck services last week. They had reportedly refused to pay bribes in lieu of the official customs duty.

The traders had staged a sit-in protest outside the customs office in Islamabad and had demanded the release of the seized goods. They boycotted the cross-LoC weekly trade after officials refused to release the confiscated trucks.

“The dispute has not yet been resolved though the weekly cross-border trading was restored today,” Mir Basir, a trade and travel facilitation officer of the cross-LoC Trade and Travel Authority (Tata) told The Express Tribune. We cannot afford to keep trade suspended for a long time because it will render us workless, he said.

Bashir added that Tata had returned one truck of cloth bartered into AJK from Indian Kashmir, since that cloth was not included in the trade items list agreed between India and Pakistan after which trading initiated in October 2008.

Bashir expressed the hope that the matter will be resolved with the officials since the stance of the custom officials was correct in the matter of levying custom duties. He said goods traded into AJK from Indian Kashmir actually ended up in Pakistan because the local market in AJK was not big enough for the consumption of all imported goods.

The truck service between the two parts of Kashmir runs on a bi-weekly schedule, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The service was suspended twice in August and September due to curfew and violence in Kashmir. The cross-LoC trade is being conducted on a barter basis as monetary exchange is not involved in this trading.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2010.