LAHORE: Warning the public regarding the hazards of refurbished Japanese cars that could possibly be contaminated by radiation, the automotive parts industry is demanding the local authorities as well as Japan to certify that all vehicles being imported into Pakistan are radiation-free.

“Following the tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan, several hundred square kilometres around the plant was affected severely (the area known as ‘dead zone’) while low levels of radioactive material were found as far as North America and Europe.

The dead zone has thousands of vehicles which were washed in the tsunami waters. There is a strong chance that many of the vehicles being doled out to our public have been contaminated by radiation,” alleged PAAPAM Chairman Syed Nabeel Hashmi on Monday.

“These vehicles are being given at very low rates as the Japanese government wants to get rid of the ‘junk’,” he added. He alleged that at the moment the Japanese and Pakistani authorities have not taken any cognizance of the situation and neither the public is being made aware of this probability.

While the local industry has been told to upgrade to EURO-II emission standards, five to seven years old vehicles are being imported freely and no check on their emission or safety standards is being kept, Hashmi said.

He observed that majority of the vehicles are not in the ownership of overseas Pakistanis and ‘are being picked up and reconditioned in lots from scrap yards in Japan’.