PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments and law enforcement agencies not to extort money from vehicles transporting goods to and from Afghanistan and to inspect them at checkposts set up on national highways from Karachi to Torkham.

A bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Sabitullah Khan disposed of a petition filed by president of Afghan Transport Union (ATU), Mohammad Noor Ahmadzai, for stopping `rampant extortion` from goods transporters by different law enforcement agencies under the garb of security and narcotics checking.

The bench observed that after arguing the case at length, the counsel for the parties agreed that let the petition be disposed of with the direction to the respondents to carry out the checking processthrough the mechanism of checkposts established on national highways from Karachi to Torkham, avoiding unnecessary delay and extortion in the garb of law enforcement/security/narcotics checking, causing inconvenience to people.

The respondents in the petition were federal government through interior secretary, principal secretary to prime minister, Federal Board of Revenue through its chairman, commandant of Frontier Constabulary, KP provincial police officer (PPO), provincial secretaries of excise, local government, forestry and wildlife departments and chairman of National Highway Authority.

Advocate Ameenur Rehman Yousafzai appeared for the petitioner and stated that due to illegal gratification/extortion from goods transporters by numerous law enforcement agencies through checkposts on national highways from Karachi to Torkham, the cost of transportation had been increased and inconvenience was caused to transporters and general public.He stated that the illegal practice also brought a bad name to the country. He said that the then prime minister had taken notice of the matter in 2019 over a complaint of the petitioner and had directed that the relevant SOPs should be revised by respective organisations to check and root out the said problems faced by goods transporters.

He stated that the prime minister had ordered that the number of checkposts should be reduced where possible and rationalised in coordination with other stakeholders/organisations, who had established checkposts nearby and convert the same into multi-agency common checkposts.

He said that the respondents, irrespective of the directives of the prime minister issued through a letter on Sep 4, 2019, didn`t take any corrective measures and the goods transporters continued to suffer.

Mr Yousafzai stated that left with no other option they had filed a complaint in the PHC`s Human Rights Cell in 2022,which was subsequently converted into a petition.

He requested that the existing checkposts shouldbe scrutinised and,iffound unnecessary, be removed forthwith all other checkposts being established for facilitation of traders be shifted to one and the same place.

The assistant advocate general, Yasir Khalid, appeared for the provincial government, whereas advocates Yasir Ali, Abbas Bakhtiar and Farmanullah Khattak represented the excise department, FBR and FC, respectively.

They denied the charges levelled by the petitioners.

The PPO had stated that the petitioner and the drivers were repeatedly asked to produce solid evidence and identification of police officials, who were taking money from them, but they didn`t have any evidence in the form of audio or video recording or any photo. It was added that allegations seemed to be generalised.