Passenger held at Agartala airport with 7 gold biscuits hidden inside rectum

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at Agartala’s Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) Airport recovered seven gold biscuits, valued at around Rs 88 lakh, which a passenger had concealed inside his rectum, officials said on Wednesday.

A Customs official said that the CISF personnel detected the smuggled gold from the possession of a passenger, who was scheduled to travel to Lucknow via Kolkata.

The seized gold biscuits weigh about 740 grams and are estimated to be worth Rs 88 lakh. Customs officials, assisted by 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-traveller and the seized gold, was handed over to Customs for further legal action.

A Customs official said a case has been registered, and an investigation has been launched to trace the source and network behind the smuggling attempt.

A police official, meanwhile, said preliminary investigation suggests that the gold was likely smuggled from Bangladesh and was being transported to Lucknow as part of an illegal trade network.

Incidents of gold smuggling through the MBB Airport and the state’s border areas are reported from time to time, officials said.

Earlier, the Border Security Force (BSF) had seized 2.18 kg of smuggled gold, valued at Rs 1.71 crore, from a border village in Tripura’s Sepahijala district.

According to a BSF official, alert troops recovered the gold -- comprising bars, biscuits, and nuts -- 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 on three sides by the neighbouring country, making it highly vulnerable to smuggling and other cross-border crimes.

Although most parts of the frontier are fenced, officials said that isolated, unfenced patches continue to pose security challenges.

The BSF official said that surveillance has been intensified along the border since the violence in Bangladesh last year, particularly after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government on August 5, 2024.