Charsadda Police foil bid to smuggle antique artifacts, arrest two persons

CHARSADDA: Police has foiled a bid to smuggle antiquity worth millions of rupees, citing an official of Charsadda police, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

DSP City Taj Mohammad told the media, police has arrested two persons under the charges of smuggling a consignment of antique artifacts worth several millions in the international market.

Police personnel arrested a truck driver and a smuggler of antiquity carrying statues and other antique artifacts as old as around 2000 years in a truck, the police official said.

Captured antique items included statues of Gautam Buddha and statues from the era of emperor Kanishka of the Kushan dynasty, he further said.

In an earlier bid of antique smuggling a man was arrested in Peshawar when police recovered an antique statue from hidden portion of his car.

The artifact was purchased in Batkhela, in Malakand and was being smuggled abroad, police investigation said. A case under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Antiquity Act 2016 was registered against the accused.