Customs official denies involvement in arms smuggling

Denying all allegations, Customs Additional Collector Dr Asif Mehmood Jah said the brother of Lahore custom collector was not involved in the smuggling of automatic weapons and a news item published and aired in a section of media was based on an anonymous letter.
He was talking to reporters on Monday along with senior customs official at Cargo Custom Complex. He said a newspaper and a channel on November 25 and 26 had aired false news relating to Lahore Customs. He said it was alleged that smuggling of automatic weapons had been carried out in collaboration of senior customs officer and offices of armed forces.“The news item was solely based on an anonymous letter,” he said adding that the letter had already been investigated by a fact-finding committee and it was found to contain baseless, false and unsubstantiated allegation which were devoid of any merit.
He said true facts of the case were that some consignments of automatic weapons were cleared by some importers who thought they were semiautomatic, however samples of these weapons were retrieved and were sent to the inspectorate General of Arms (GHQ) Rawalpandi. He said, after receiving of the verification that the weapons were fully automatic, the custom registered two FIRs against the importers and their clearing agents for mis-declamation and fraud.
He said another FIR had also been registered on for identical offence and a large number of automatic weapons had also been seized. “A parallel process has also been initiated to determine the role of customs staff so that action against the staff my also be taken,” he said adding that in the first FIR six accused were nominated and 240 automatic pistols were recovered. The accused involved in the smuggling of illegal weapons were identified as Mirza Hassan Askari Baig, Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim Humayun Baig, Syed Irfan Ali, Shahzada Khuram Khan, Muhammad Riaz Qureshi and Shams Nasir Pirzada. Meanwhile in the second FIR four accused were nominated and 230 automatic pistols were recorded. The accused were Noor Zaib Bilal and Saeed Muhammad Khalid.