Saqib Ali Haidri
Muzaffarabad: Intra-Kashmir trade once again became controversial after arrest of truck driver along with his brother on Monday.
Protest procession by family members, civil society and transporters was held on Rawalpindi Muzaffarabad Road at Kohala here on Thursday. All trucks loaded with merchandizes of trade of both side of Line of Control are stopped there and protestors demanded release of truck driver.According to details, a truck with registration number AJKC 5089 has been taken under custody when around 51 kilograms of brown sugar was found in it. Driver of the truck Manzoor with his brother Khurshid sons of Muhammad Shafi are in police custody.
While addressing to protest procession, senior political leader of Jamat e Islami Major (r) Latif Khalique said that drivers are innocent and they must be released. He said that we will extend our protest if truck driver and his brother were not released.
He said, “Most of the people from Muzaffarabad to Muree are related to this truck carriage business and they agree to go on other side of LOC for this trade due to high fare.” Javed Arif Abbasi, chairman of a non government organization while addressing the protestors said that RAW is planning these kinds of conspiracies to sabotage this peace and trade process. He said that their facilitators in Pakistan do these kinds of acts to defame Pakistan.
He said that it is an international rule that in any kind of trade between borders, state governments are responsible, Abbasi demanded that truck departed to other part of LOC should be sealed after thorough check up by relevant authorities so in case of these circumstances, governments should be considered responsible.
Senior Vice President of Joint Chamber of Commerce AJK told this correspondent that our role is to conduct meetings of traders on living on both sides of LOC in any third country.
He said that our chamber consists of 44 members comprised of 22 from AJK and 22 from Indian occupied Kashmir and some of them are traders as well.
He said that if the main culprits of these incidents were arrested and punished on the very first instance then this kind of incidents would not have happened again.
He said,” the main culprits of this kind of incidents should be arrested without discrimination of affiliation with anybody. There is a mafia behind this who want to sabotage this peace process.”
One of the drivers Arshad Abbasi said that one truck costs about 4 to 5 million and when such incidents took place, it is the owner and driver of that truck who face the brunt of loss not traders. He said,” We (drivers) do not load truck but we get a list of freight loaded in our trucks with total number of commodities and our purpose is to take this freight to other destination and we charge our fare.”
Protestors demanded AJK government, TATA, Federal government and all other relevant authorities to release truck driver and his brother, they said that they will not allow to pass on this trade via Kohala until their demand fullfills
