Assam police have decided to probe the dried betel nuts scam involving betel nut traders, top security officials and smugglers. A team of Assam police is set to go to Barak valley to investigate into the scam.
City police on April 16 in a raid seized three truckloads of dried betel nuts on NH-37 at Beharbari under Basistha police station for illegally transporting the consignments.
Police also arrested six persons–Altaf Hussain, Dilowar Hussain Laskar, Iqbal Hussain, Rajen Das, Abul Hussain and Debu Das–along with the trucks.
According to police all the arrested persons, who hail from Barak valley, are involved in the smuggling of dried betel nuts.
A police official said during interrogation, one of the arrested person revealed before the police that dried beetle nuts brought from Mynamar via Silchar are regularly transported without valid documents to different states.
Sources said the police team will conduct raid at different places in Silchar, Kariganj and Badarpur to bust the smuggling racket.
Also read: Tentacles of betel nut smuggling network spread across NE
Northeast Now in an exclusive story on March 30 reported that large consignments of dried betel nuts (mostly from Thailand and Indonesia) are smuggled into India through Myanmar without payment of any import duty.
Most of the illegal consignments of dried betel nut are smuggled in through two Land Customs Stations — Zokhawthar in Mizoram and Moreh in Manipur, the report said.
The smuggling network operates in connivance with security forces and enforcement agencies personnel.
Truckloads of dried betel nut smuggled in through Myanmar finds way to different gutka producing factories in Gujarat, Rajasthan, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Maharastra and Haryana.