Ashrafuddin Pirzada
TORKHAM: Custom agents, traders and transporters on Wednesday staged a protest demonstration in Torkham and chanted slogans for the reopening of Torkham border that was closed on Saturday over the passport and visa conditions placed for cargo vehicles drivers and their helpers.
The protesters were holding placards and black flags marched in Torkham bazaar.
Torkham Custom Clearing Agents Association chairman Mirajuddin Shinwari said that both the Pakistan and Afghan governments should sincerely address the problems of the citizens and relax the border for trade activities. He said hundreds of cargo vehicles were parked on both sides hit billions of rupees in losses to traders from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The daily losses in terms of taxes being collected from export and import goods at Torkham is around 150 million rupees every day while billions of rupees worth of goods got rotten due to the closure of the border”, said Mirajuddin Shinwari.
Shinwari said Pakistan should relax visa and passport conditions for truckers at least so that trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan could continue smoothly. He said traders and business communities strongly reject the hard and fast rules and anti-trade border policies.
Meanwhile, Taliban-led Afghan government threatened to permanently close down the Torkham and Kharlachi border points with Pakistan if a mutually agreeable solution was not chalked out for the long awaited border issues including visa and passport issues.
It may be mentioned here that the Torkham border crossing remained closed for all kinds of business activities for the last five days that irking life on both sides of residents.
