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Agartala, Nov 12 (IANS) Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at Agartala’s Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) airport recovered seven gold biscuits, worth around Rs 88 lakh, which a passenger had hidden inside his rectum, officials said on Wednesday.
A customs official said CISF personnel detected the smuggled gold from the possession of a passenger who was scheduled to travel to Lucknow via Kolkata.
The weight of the seized gold biscuits is approximately 740 grams and its value is estimated at Rs 88 lakh. Customs officials with the assistance of doctors from a private hospital in Agartala recovered the gold from the passenger’s rectum after necessary medical procedures.
The passenger along with his co-passenger and the seized gold were handed over to the Customs Department for further legal action.
A customs official said a case has been registered and investigation has been launched to trace the source and network behind the smuggling attempt.
Meanwhile, a police officer said preliminary investigation revealed that the gold was smuggled from Bangladesh and was being transported to Lucknow as part of an illegal trade network.
Officials said incidents of gold smuggling from MBB airport and border areas of the state keep coming to light from time to time.
Earlier, the Border Security Force (BSF) had seized 2.18 kg of smuggled gold worth Rs 1.71 crore from a border village in Tripura’s Sipahijala district.
According to a BSF official, alert troops recovered the gold – which included bars, biscuits and dry fruits – during a search operation near the India-Bangladesh border.
The seized gold was handed over to the Customs Department for further action.
Tripura shares an 856 km long border with Bangladesh, surrounded by the neighboring country on three sides, making it highly vulnerable to smuggling and other cross-border crimes. Although most parts of the border are fenced, officials said isolated, unfenced stretches pose security challenges. The BSF official said surveillance along the border has been intensified since the violence in Bangladesh last year, especially after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government on August 5, 2024.
–IANS
SC/VD