SL mission keeping close watch on transit passengers case at city airport
Lankan mission is keenly watching the episode of five Sri Lankan transit passengers camped at Chennai airport seeking back their seven kg of gold allegedly seized by the Indian customs officers two weeks ago.
“We are waiting to know how the Madras High Court is going to come out with a decision on the issue on Monday. We have already written to Colombo on the subject,” a senior official at Lankan diplomatic mission here told DT Next on Friday.
Customs officials had claimed that they had recovered the gold bars from lavatories of the aircraft they came to Chennai from Dubai on their way to Colombo, while the Lankans claimed that the customs officers had seized the gold personally from them.
Five Sri Lankans had been camping at the transit area of Chennai airport since June 2, refusing to go back to their country ‘without getting their gold back’ from the customs department. They claimed that the gold bars were seized from them when they landed in Chennai as transit passengers. They have written to higher authorities with the help of a lawyer claiming that they had declared the gold while boarding at Dubai airport and were on their way to Colombo when they had to be in Chennai for transit.
Their lawyer S Zahir Hussain, after customs officials insisted that the gold was indeed recovered from aircraft lavatory, has approached the court with a petition that Indian customs had no jurisdiction on declared gold carried by the transit passengers landed in Chennai but bound for Colombo.
The lawyer claimed that all the five Lankan passengers were taken back to the aircraft by customs officers after taking away their passports and mobile phones. When questioned, my clients accepted that they are in possession of gold and showed the invoice for it. They were carrying totally 6.984 kg of declared gold together from Dubai to Colombo and they were in Chennai as transit passengers.