Ashrafuddin Pirzada
PAKISTAN: Border authorities at Torkham have seized a number of stolen and snatched mobile sets while being smuggled to Afghanistan, police said on Monday.
Police officer Ayaz Shinwari of the Landikotal police station said that frontier corps(FC) personnel deployed at Zero point at Torkham border during routine checking have foiled several bids to smuggle the stolen and snatched cellular mobile sets to Afghanistan in the past weeks.
He said children were used to smuggling the stolen and snatched mobile phones. He said border authorities have so far recovered 66 cellular phones of different companies from the luggage carrying to Afghanistan via the Torkham border.
Mobile dealers said that when Pakistan Telecommunication Authority(PTA) lock the stanched and stolen mobile phones and the ones brought from foreign countries were tried to smuggle to Afghanistan. They said the smugglers shift it to Afghanistan where its International Mobile Equipment Identity(IMEI) number is changed. They said some of the smuggled phones were sent back to Pakistan with the changed IMEI number which could not be traced down here in Pakistan. They said it could be used in terrorism bids and other illegal purposes.
The police official said they have issued the details of the mobile phones in social media so that owners could contact them. He said few owners so far had handed over their mobile phones while the rest would also be handed over to their owners when they contacted the Landikotal police station.
