Customs, Tariq Road traders accuse each other of shooting in Monday raid

Traders and Customs authorities have accused each other of shooting during the early Monday raid at a shopping plaza on Tariq Road, with police on Tuesday registering an FIR against “unidentified shopkeepers” who allegedly shot injured a Customs official.

The Ferozabad police registered the case on behalf of the Customs against traders who turned violent after the action in which, according to the Customs, smuggled clothes worth millions of rupees were sized. The FIR No. 8/20 was registered under Sections 147, 148, 149, 353 and 324.

In the FIR, Customs officials said they came under attack during a raid conducted on a tip-off about the presence of smuggled clothes at a shopping plaza.

They alleged that scores of shopkeepers attacked them and their vehicles, and also shot and injured a Customs official. Ferozabad SHO Aurangzaib Khattak said the police had registered a case against shopkeepers of Tariq Road market; however, their names would be added in the FIR after a police investigation was completed.

He said the police would examine CCTV footages to identify shopkeepers who took the law into their own hands. So far, he added, none of the suspects had been identified and the investigation was under way.

On the other hand, the chairman of the Tariq Road Action Committee, Asad Aman, accused the Pakistan Customs of breaking into the shops late night and confiscating clothes in the absence of the shopkeepers.

He said they had had CCTV footages in which Customs officials were seen “breaking in to the shops at night”. “When we came to know about the raid and arrived at the market, Customs officers fired at us as we tried to stop them,” he claimed. The traders have called the raid a “criminal act” and demanded a fair investigation into it.

According to the Customs, smuggled clothes were found hidden in several shops in the shopping plaza. The seized clothes were shifted to the Customs House in five trucks for further investigation and legal procedure, said Customs authorities.

On Monday, traders staged a protest and also announced a strike on Monday. Angry protesters blocked the main road of the busy market area, causing traffic jams on the adjacent roads.

The protest lasted for hours, with some demonstrators throwing dustbins and other items on Tariq Road. However, after a meeting with Sindh Governor Imran Ismail at the Governor House, they called off their strike and also ended the protest.

In the meeting, the governor had said that he would talk to Prime Minister Imran Khan and the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Syed Shabbar Zaidi, about the matter. The governor had assured the traders that he would do his best to make sure that their problems were solved.

The governor had also assured the delegation that a representative group of the traders would be invited to attend a meeting of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Customs on January 22. The meeting was also attended by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Bilal Abdul Ghaffar.