Airport Sketches

Operation Deadline
July 23

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23-07-2013.
Tuesday. 9:30 AM. United Airways flight. The plane is on the runway at Chittagong Shah Amanat Airport. It’s arrived from Muscat. Final destination Dhaka.
Those scheduled to disembark in Chittagong have gotten off one by one. Shahnewaz hasn’t disembarked. He’s not supposed to either. This handsome young man (truly handsome) is perhaps thinking, coming into smuggling instead of modeling doesn’t seem like such a bad decision after all. Just another hour now. I’ll land in Dhaka. If I can just deliver these gold bars and jewelry, what a triumph! Life is so beautiful! Let’s have a bit of whiskey!
Eat, drink, and be merry, the world is wonderfully
big! Ah!

But alas! Smugglers
propose, customs officers dispose. I received secret intelligence.
My skin crawled! My two officers and I ran. Past the airport
office to the runway. There’s United! We ran again (literally ran)! We got there. Boarded the plane. Also at a run. With a very cool demeanor, our hero looked in our direction.
He seemed a bit disconcerted. No Bengali drinker likes to be disturbed during his drinking time.
Still, I went closer. Asked if he had anything illegal with him. I didn’t expect him to say yes, and he didn’t disappoint us in that regard either. I challenged him,
searched his bag. I
found it, I found the thing! Something very heavy hidden in a black
packet. I grabbed the guy and brought him down from the plane.
He walked with us impassively. Not a trace of fear on his face.
Perhaps he had forgotten to be afraid out of fear itself. I brought him to my office room and detained him. With my permission,
one of my officers took Shahnewaz aside for a body search. No, nothing much there. By then a crowd had gathered around.
Government agencies, private organizations.
Everyone. The press media had arrived. Click! Click!! I opened the black packet. A large brownish
envelope. Opened that too. Four elongated cloth ribbon-shaped bags. Three
brown, one black. From the bags
emerged rows of gold bars arranged side by side lengthwise, tightly wrapped in brown plastic tape. I counted them. 146 in total. 10 bhori each. Total 1460 bhori. I weighed them. Nearly 17.02 kilograms. Click! Click!! Still going on. I searched his other bag more thoroughly.
Another packet! Opened it. Several lockets, bangles, earrings, rings. Gold,
studded with precious stones. I weighed them. 400 grams. Then began the press briefing. Lights, camera, microphones. So many questions they ask!! (Ugh! If I’d known beforehand I would have dressed up a bit. I looked foolish in the papers, on TV. Hahahaha)

I informed Patenga police station.
Police came, a case was filed,
FIR was done, and so many other things. Then I handed the accused over to police custody.
They handcuffed him and put him in the car. The seized nearly 17.5 kilograms of gold
in another police car. In that car were myself and my officers. With goods worth nearly 8 crore taka, we were heading to deposit them at the Custodian branch of Chittagong Custom House. Police cars in front and behind. I am the leader of this entire procession. What a bearing I had! After handing Shahnewaz over to Patenga police station, we set off again for the Custom House. Light rain was falling. Traffic jam on the road. Iftar time was also approaching. Eventually we reached the Custom House. It was iftar time. We had iftar right there. I deposited the gold. After a long period of silence, hearing the azan feels very good. Ah, what peace!

I’ve written the entire incident of that day very briefly. Much was left out. I talked with that smuggler for a long time.
Had conversations, you could say.
The psychology of a caught criminal is strange! The psychology of the people surrounding him is even stranger!

Operation Deadline
August 4

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Looking intently at people standing in line is not easy. The matter of maintaining eye contact has never seemed comfortable to me. (If it had, many things could have been different. Let’s leave that for today!) Should I look at their eyes, or look at the person, or think about what I should be looking at—this itself is a big
challenge! Yet this is exactly what I’ve had to do for the past several days. Secret intelligence about smuggling has reached us. It’s not just this checking, there’s more. Flights land at Chittagong Shah Amanat Airport every day.
Sometimes I suddenly go with my team inside the plane. Search thoroughly as I please.
In customs this searching has the official name of rummaging. Police call it conducting a raid. The work is quite enjoyable.
Even completely innocent people look at you with a somewhat fearful expression at such times. This fear is perhaps the fear of not being a criminal. Everything is searched. Search anywhere you want in the entire plane. If necessary,
by dismantling the body parts of the plane. This was what was happening.

It was going on like this.
I wasn’t finding much. What I was getting was just pressure from bosses on the phone; occasional scolding. Be very alert, airport customs! There’s a danger in doing any job properly once.
The next time the boss expects perfection too. This expectation is reliability.

04-08-2013.
Sunday. Word came that what I was looking for
would arrive. I rushed to the airport. 8:00. At the airport customs hall, myself and my team.
I’m always skeptical in professional matters. Even more so today. I only give up the trouble of disbelieving in matters where believing causes no harm to anyone.
I’m looking around suspiciously;
walking at a brisk pace.
Here and there. Looking, observing. My
officers are even more active. They’re all the grab-hold-and-nail-down type. But sensibly so. Without being like this, working at an airport isn’t easy. Fly Dubai flight. Scheduled to land at 10:05. From Dubai. My ARO
(Assistant Revenue Officer) has brought the passenger manifest. I’m matching passenger names with secret information. I found 4 Iqbals. None of their parents had let go of the great poet’s boys. We didn’t let go of their boys either. I took the Iqbal gentlemen one by one to my room. I asked each of them if they had anything hidden with them. None of them
disappointed us either; meaning, they said ‘no’. One of them seemed to behave somewhat strangely. An ARO with my permission conducted a body search on him. This scene is not pleasant at all. For the sake of profession, one has to digest even the discomfort of witnessing another’s humiliation. The scene changed rapidly. Inside the jeans pants belt, just below the underwear, some gold bars very carefully tied around the waist, wrapped in brown
scotch tape. Arranged lengthwise.
Alas! This Iqbal didn’t become a great poet, he became a great scoundrel.

Keeping him locked in the room,
I ran again toward the customs hall. Customs checking of Fly Dubai passengers was ongoing.
I went to the area where baggage scanning happens. My officers were very alert. I saw a man somehow trying to leave the customs area in a hurry. I pointed him out to an ARO with a gesture. When asked what he had with him, the man behaved rudely. My ARO is even more seasoned.
With a cool head, he challenged him. Some people have very sharp sixth sense, or it works sharply understanding the situation. This ARO of mine is somewhat like that. Before he could understand anything, thinking something or other, he put his hand on his waist. Then grabbed him and took him to my room. I went along. Just like before, the gold bars hidden on his body were revealed. He was Rashedul. Rashedul started crying. An uncomfortable scene.

The events that happened after this
were largely a partial repetition of the incident of recovering nearly 17.5 kilograms of gold on 23-07-2013. So there’s less novelty in this part of the writing. The difference was in the beginning of the incident, in the quantity of gold. And in some other places too.

By then a crowd had gathered
around. Government agencies, private organizations.
Everyone. The press media had arrived. Click! Click!! Just like before. I cut the tape and took out the rows of gold bars arranged side by side lengthwise, tightly wrapped in brown plastic tape. Put them on the table and counted. 53 in total. Iqbal had
28, the rest were Rashedul’s. 10 bhori each. 530 bhori. I weighed them. Nearly 6.18 kilograms. Click! Click!!
Still going on. Continuously. I searched their bags. No! Nothing like that. All personal effects. Then began the press briefing. Lights, camera, microphones. So many questions they ask!! The patience and treasure trove of questions of reporters are both limitless. (Like before, I looked foolish in the papers, on TV. Maybe
it came out right. Ugh! I wish I could be a bit smarter!)

As usual, I informed Patenga
police station. Police came, a case was filed,
FIR was done, and so many other things. Then I handed the accused over to police custody.
They handcuffed him and put him in the car. The seized nearly 6.18 kilograms of gold
in another police car. In that car were myself and my officers. Just like last time. With goods worth nearly two and a half crore taka, we were heading to deposit them at the Custodian branch of Chittagong Custom House. Police cars in front and behind. I am the leader of this entire procession. The bearing is a bit less than last time, but it’s there! Small people take pride even in small tasks.
I’m like that. That day there was no traffic jam. Iftar time was also approaching. Eventually we reached the Custom House. The azan was being called. The sweet azan of waiting. We all had iftar there together. I deposited the gold. The peace of handing over state property is of a different kind.
Police left with those two people for Patenga police station.

In this entire
matter, as always, I received all kinds of round-the-clock cooperation and support from the senior officers of Chittagong Custom House. The credit here belongs more to them. What the hand will do, what it won’t do, the head decides.
When you get support from bosses, doing good things becomes easier. Thanks to the officers.