Staff Reporter The Rangers in a raid here captured thousands surgical masks and arrested two persons involved in hoarding of masks after four cases of novel coronavirus reported in the country on Saturday. The paramilitary force conducted a raid at PECHS and arrested an owner of a car showroom who was involved in the illegal practice amid the fear of coronavirus in public. The law enforcement agency on indication of accused Mohammad Usman captured 74,000 surgical masks and 200 infusion water drips from a place in the city, a spokesman said. The accused had purchased large number of the masks in partnership with a car showroom owner Muzammil. The man was selling the masks at the OLX site at inflated price, the Rangers spokesman said. The paramilitary force also conducted a raid at Water Pump area and arrested a shopkeeper for hoarding face masks. The agency recovered large quantity of the masks, which were being sold by the accused at 1650 rupees per packet, officials said. Earlier, it was reported that amid coronavirus outbreak Pakistan running out of surgical masks and the cost has been surged by around thousand percent. An artificial shortage of surgical masks created by the vested interests. The profiteers became active to make a good fortune out of the opportunity. According to reports, masks have either disappeared from medical stores in the city or are being sold at exorbitant prices across the metropolis. A medical store owner told a box of ordinary surgical masks which would have ordinarily cost somewhere between Rs300 to 400 is now being sold for more than Rs2,000. Store owners also said that prices of N-95 masks used to protect from coronavirus, despite becoming more expensive is also no longer available in the market. Despite a ban by the government of Pakistan on the export of masks, nearly 10,000 N-95 masks and more than 3,600 ordinary regular masks were exported to China. Six companies were given special permission to export masks to China, leading to a shortage in the country.
