Hyderabad, Oct 19 (IANS) In one of the biggest seizures at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Customs officials on Tuesday recovered 6.06 kg gold from a passenger who arrived from Dubai.
Two gold bars, of 3 kg each, of 24 carat purity, and worth Rs 2.96 crore, were concealed in two rechargeable lights.
The officials, who searched the baggage of a passenger arriving from Dubai by flight EK 524, found the two emergency lights. On suspicion, they opened the lights and found the bars kept inside the rechargeable batteries.
The Customs officials seized the gold and filed a case of smuggling against the passenger. Further investigations are on, an official said.
The airport has been witnessing a series of gold seizures. Those resorting to gold smuggling are adopting innovative ways to conceal the contraband.
On October 8, 528.2 grams of gold and 28 grams of silver valued at Rs 20.44 lakh was seized from a passenger who arrived from Doha. He had concealed the gold and silver in the face cream boxes in checked-in baggage.
On October 5, Customs officials seized over 1,200 grams of gold in paste form valued at Rs 58.16 lakh from a female Sudanese passenger who arrived via Dubai.
According to officials, the gold was concealed in the undergarments and hand baggage.
A day earlier, customs officials detected and seized 604.82 grams of gold valued at Rs 29.02 lakh in three separate cases.
In two of these cases, the gold was concealed in undergarments of the passengers while a third passenger had concealed it inside check-in baggage.
The minister and his son are accused in the October 3 incident in which nine persons, including four farmers, were mowed down by SUVs. The minister's son Ashish Mishra has already been arrested.
It's likely that Sidhu will put forth the list of demands in the Punjab government as he is upset with the appointments in the government. He has resigned from the post of state president, but it has not been accepted yet by Sonia Gandhi. The meeting gains significance as it comes ahead of the CWC meeting.
The civil secretariat houses the top offices of the government, including those of the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha and his advisors. Police tried to intervene to restrain the mourners from carrying out the sit-in outside the civil secretariat.
"My son will go to the police tomorrow and assist the probe. He has not escaped anywhere," Mishra said on his arrival in Lucknow. He said that his son was very much in their house in Lakhimpur.
Punjab Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday proceeded on indefinite fast in support of his demand for action against Ashish Mishra, the son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra and main accused in Sunday's violence in which nine persons, including four farmers, were killed.
Following a tipoff, the DRI sleuths swooped on the port on October 4 and detected the huge narcotics contraband, valued at Rs 125 crore, among boxes of a cooking oil container arriving from Iran and are now probing the possibility of a bigger drug smuggling racket with international ramifications for India and other countries.
