Silver items seized, 3 held

Indian customs officials on Thursday recovered silver items worth around Rs 75 lakh from a Bangladesh-bound BRTC bus at Petrapole border, opposite to Benapole border, and arrested three bus staff, including the driver.

The arrestees are driver Fazlul Haque Iran, supervisor Mohammad Alamgir and helper Motiur Rahman Akhand. They are Bangladeshi. 

Ahbijit Chakroborty, officer at Petrapole Customs House, told The Daily Star that acting on a tip-off that some silver items were being smuggled into Bangladesh in the bus, they raided the vehicle around 4:30pm. 

"The items were kept hidden inside the false ceiling of the bus in such a way that no one could notice them easily. It took three hours to get the items," he said.

He said there were some silver chains, coins and plates among the items. He could not immediately confirm whether the items were antique and said that those were sent to a laboratory for tests.

Contacted, Oboni Ghosh, owner of Shyamoli Paribahan in India, said Shyamoli and Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) are jointly operating buses on Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala route.