A team of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Siliguri zone, arrested five persons from three places with 72 gold bars worth Rs 5.34 crore on Wednesday.
Arrested Ismail Hoque, Mijanur Pramanik, Rafiqul Islam, Matiyar Rahman and Saju Pramanik are all in their mid-20s and residents of Dinhata in Cooch Behar. All were allegedly trying to smuggle gold to Calcutta.
“Mijanur, Saju and Rafiqul were nabbed from a bus at Pundibari in Cooch Behar. Ismail and Matiyar were caught from Alipurduar. Ismail was nabbed from Kanchankanya Express in Dalgaon and Matiyar from Padatik Express in New Alipurduar station,” said a DRI source. "The gold bars were hidden in specially-made belts on their waists."
On Thursday, a Siliguri court ordered 14 days in jail custody for all five.
Seek govt’s approval: Court to AG
Calcutta: Calcutta High Court on Wednesday asked advocate-general Kishore Datta to get approval from the state government if he wanted to appear for two of the accused in the school teachers’ recruitment "scam".
Datta had been appearing for Sujay Krishna Bhadra and former Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee, both of whom have been arrested in the "scam", in the court of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh. On Monday, Justice Ghosh told Datta being the advocate-general of the state, he could not stand as a counsel for the accused without prior approval from the state.
OUR LEGAL REPORTER
