Rs 6 crore gold haul

TT, Siliguri, April 7: The directorate of revenue intelligence seized more than 21kg gold and arrested five persons, including two women, from Mallaguri in Siliguri today.

DRI sources said the group was carrying 79 gold bars of different sizes and weight and its estimated price was around Rs 6.5 crore.

Sources said the arrested persons were from Aizwal in Mizoram and identified as Dartingil and Sawilangi, both women, and Sanghluma, Lallunchunga and Kungliana.

Ajay Choudhury, the lawyer who represented the DRI, said the DRI officials had information that five persons from Shillong travelling in a bus were carrying gold bars and the DRI officials waited at Mallaguri for the bus. "Around 8am, a bus from northeast reached Mallaguri and the officials apprehended the suspected persons," he said.

"The DRI personnel took them to their office at Collegepara in Siliguri and checked their luggage. Gold bars were found in the rucksacks of both the women and in the bags of the remaining three. The group is suspected to be members of a gold smuggling racket," Choudhury added.

The arrested persons were produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate's court in Siliguri today and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days, the lawyer said.

In the past couple of months, this is the fourth gold seizure by the DRI in and around Siliguri.

"We are trying to obtain information about the racket and how they plan to smuggle gold to other parts of the country using Siliguri as a corridor," a source said.