3 Air India employees arrested for helping gold smugglers
Darpan News Desk IANS, 19 Nov, 2021 09:12 AM
Jaipur, Nov 19 (IANS) Three employees of Air India, accused of having a role in the smuggling of gold, have been arrested, officials said on Friday.
They have been accused of having a hand in a recent incident wherein 1.5 kg gold -- stored beneath an aircraft's seat -- was seized.
A passenger, who was later questioned in the matter, revealed the involvement of three employees of Air India.
All three of them have been arrested on charges of assisting in gold smuggling.
The Customs Department claims that the smugglers had brought gold worth Rs 75 lakh hidden under the seat with the help of the arrested individuals.
"...or else, it was not possible to hide the gold under the seat of the plane," an official said.
According to the information received, this is the first time that the collusion of airline employees has come to the fore in the case of gold smuggling.
On November 16, at Jaipur airport, the Customs team had seized gold from an aircraft.
A senior Customs official said that gold was hidden under the seat of the plane with the connivance of Shivram Meena, Gyanchand Meena and Kaushal Verma.
During questioning, it was revealed that they have been working for Air India for the last four years.
Chidambaram was addressing a press conference at the fag-end of his two-day visit to the state in the capacity as the All India Congress Committee's senior observer in charge of Goa ahead of the 2022 state assembly polls.
Punjab annually generates 20 million tonnes of paddy straw and this is normally set on fire to quickly clear the fields for the next crop, resulting in choking of the National Capital Region (NCR) in October and November.
Priyanka's remarks came after farmers on Tuesday evening vacated the railway tracks and highways in Punjab after the Amarinder Singh government accepted the demands of the sugarcane farmers.
The 'rebel' legislators reached Dehradun in the morning to apprise Rawat about the mood of the public against the Amarinder Singh-led government in the state. They, among 20-odd party legislators, have been demanding replacement of Amarinder Singh as he failed to fulfill the 2017 poll promises.
Rao also slammed Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for raking up 10-year-old allegations related to the mining scam in an attempt to put Congress leaders in the dock in pollbound Goa.
According to the customs department, one male passenger aged 27 years, flew in from Dubai by Emirates flight EK-544 was intercepted at exit gate and his baggage which were found to be unusually heavy were subjected for detailed examination.
