Drug seizure again holds up trade across Line of Control

SRINAGAR: Trade across the Line of Control in Kashmir was disrupted again after Indian authorities arrested the driver of a truck arrived from Pakistan Occupied for allegedly carrying drug. While 50 trucks and drivers from India were stuck in PoK, 22 trucks from PoK were stranded at the Trade Facilitation Centre at Slamabad in J&K for the third day on Sunday.

“We have a meeting scheduled for Monday and I am told PoK authorities are seeking evidences to prosecute the drug supplying party,” Baramulla deputy commissioner Talat Parez said. “Let me have a meeting with the other side and then we can say when and how the crisis will be solved.”

Pakistan has refused to permit the return of its convoy asserting it should get all the drivers and their trucks back, a senior civil administration officer said.

During scanning of the merchandize that 22 trucks brought in from Chakothi in PoK on Friday, DIG North Kashmir Range Gareeb Dass told reporters, Indian authorities detected 305 small packets of brown sugar, weighing 10-15 grams each, concealed in the orange cartons loaded on one truck. Local authorities arrested the driver of the truck and held three local traders in whose name the consignment had come.



Top police sources said the driver is pleading innocence saying he didn’t know what the boxes carried. “Even the traders say they are merely commission agents of some traders in Chandigarh and Amritsar,” one top officer said. “We may require detaining some people in Punjab now.”

The crisis is hitting trade across the Line of Control in Kashmir that started in 2008 as a confidence building measure between the neighbours.