Agartala: Oct 31: In South Tripura’s Sabroom sub-division, India-Bangla border area, smuggling trade is going on, in a joint operation of Customs and BSF, clothes worth approximately 10 lakh rupees was seized along with vehicle today.
Seizure of smuggled goods in various border areas of Sabroom sub-division is an almost daily activity of BSF and Customs. Smuggling trade using Sabroom border is flourishing, and seizure of these smuggled goods is only a trailer to run the whole business smoothly especially in the case of customs. Allegation of the well-intentioned people of the area.
It is learned that on October 31, 2023 at approximately 8:30 am in the morning, based on a tip-off from G Branch of BSF, in a joint operation by BSF and Customs, a transport lorry carrying a large quantity of clothes and the clothes was seized from Manu Bazar in Sabroom. It is known that Agartala-based Datta Transport Company often send a large amount of cloth to be smuggled to Manubazar area through transport vehicles, said the driver of the vehicle.
Also, based on the information of secret sources, it is known that various types of illegal goods are often brought to Bangladesh using transport vehicles for smuggling. The driver also said that there is no legal memo with the car. When asked about the whole matter from the owner, he replied by showing a kind of goods transport law with a thumb, no need for paper, everything is done by word of mouth, this is how business is going – this is how it will continue in the future. It is reported that Pramod Dutta, the owner of Dutta Transport, is running the blue scheme of his smuggling business in association with Ranjit Sarkar, a cloth merchant of Manu Bazar, under the guise of transport business. The lorry contained various daily necessities of other shopkeepers of Manubazar area, due to which other traders in Manubazar had to suffer a lot. Later, other traders of Manubazar hired another vehicle and took the goods to Manubazar. Incidentally, for years Ranjit Sarkar, a well-to-do cloth seller of Monibazar area, continues his smuggling business across the entire sub-division. Even though customs and BSF seized the goods, it was seen that the valid documents of the goods were not found. If any goods are legally purchased by a shopkeeper, GST bill is immediately issued to him by the wholesale shopkeeper. But in this case, why could not show any paper, the owner of the cloth Ranjit Sarkar? The question remains.
On the other hand, the BSF intelligence department is guarding the border area day and night to stop the smuggling trade. The BSF seizes the goods brought for smuggling at the border and hands them over to the customs. In this case, BSF prepares the document of the seized goods and determines its estimated price and hands over the seized goods to the customs office. But by showing the loophole of the law, the customs authorities have auctioned the products of the BSF fixed price in the market at a very low price. It can be heard that this whole business cycle is going on under the finger of an officer of the customs department with the aim of getting the goods at a low price through secret connections. On the whole, the cross-border smuggling trade has flourished across Sabroom sub-division at the behest of ilegal transport companies, unscrupulous traders, unscrupulous customs officials.
