Drug haul hits border trade with Pakistan
A drug bust resulting in the seizure of about 66kg of heroin worth an estimated ₹300 crore has disruptedtheIndia-Pakistanborder trade operated wholly on a barter system since 2008 between the two neighbours.
Police in Kashmir recovered the huge stash of heroin from the cavity of a truck coming from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and bound for Salamabad on the Indian side. The driver was arrested and the truck seized, prompting both countries to cease the barter trade across the Line of Control (LoC).
India, however, has resumed the trade since August 8 and is continuing to send some trucks laden with goods across the border. Pakistan though has stopped reciprocating, demanding that the driver be freed immediately. Indian traders sending trucks across are hoping that Pakistan will relent and they would receive goods in exchange soon.
The barter trade in which no money changes hand but only goods are exchanged by local population on either side has been a unique initiative in force since 2008 as a key confidence building measure (CBM) between the two neighbours.
The trade took place four days a week at two places: One on a route connecting Uri in India to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan and the other linking India’s Poonch to Pakistan’s Rawalakot.
Indian officials, however, are pushing for an early resumption of the trade. “From our side, we are committed to continuing the The trade works entirely on a barter system based on trust. Many traders dobusinesswitha cousin or an uncle who probably crossed the LoC when militancy erupted in the 1990s
The trade is done on a mutually accepted list of 21 items on each side
It takes place four days a week, through the Uri-Muzaffarabad and PoonchRawalakot routes
worth goods have been traded since 2008 Recovery of 114 packets of heroin, PoK driver arrested Recovery of 305 packets of brown
cross-LoC trade, which is a CBM, within the parameters of a proper security system. As far as the case of the arrested driver is concerned, it will reach its logical conclusion through a trial,” Sagar D Doifode, the sub-divisional magistrate of Uri and the custodian of the cross-border trade, said.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has also strongly argued for restarting the barter trade. “There are many difficulties through the Wagah border… charas and ganja come from there but no one talks about closing it. Just because a mistake happens on the sugar, PoK driver arrested
Recovery of a Chinese pistol, two pistol magazines, 14 rounds of pistol
Uri-Muzaffarabad road, we should not talk about closing it. We will not allow that to happen,” she said at a rally in Srinagar recently. She said there should be proper banking facilities and scanners at the check-points to facilitate the trade.
State director general of police, SP Vaid, has also called for stricter precautions to be put in place to prevent the barter trade from being misused by unscrupulous elements.
“Full body truck scanners are to be installed soon and efforts are on to implement other security measures,” he said.
Indian authorities, meanwhile, ammunition, four AK magazines, 120 AK ammunition and two Chinese grenades; driver from Kashmir arrested
have barred Pakistanbased trader Anjum Zaman and 34 firms owned by him from participating in the barter trade hereafter. The truck carrying the drugs was part of a consignment sent by a company owned by Zaman.
Hilal Turkie, president of the Salamabad cross-LoC traders’ union and a trader himself, said bringing transparency and better monitoring were key to securing the barter trade, under which a trader from the Indian side “exports’ an item worth a certain amount across the LoC and his counterpart there sends back goods worth an equal amount.