Kolkata, Sep 16: In what is believed to be an incident of breach of trust, five people including an army officer were arrested on Friday for taking illegal gold possession in West Bengal. According to a report, the five men had seized 15 kg gold from smugglers near Hasimara in Alipurduar district and had let the culprits go free. The 15 gold bars, weighing a kilo each were recovered from the two army personnel and three policemen. On Saturday, a court in Alipurduar sent all the five to police custody for four days.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, Lt colonel Pawan Brahma and jawan Dashrath Singh of Hasimara’s army intelligence unit, and police officers Anuruddha Thakur, SDPO at Jaigaon in Alipurduar, Satyendra Nath Roy, sub-inspector of Hasimara police outpost and Kamalendra Narayan, former officer-in-charge of the same outpost were arrested after they were interrogated by the state CID officers.

Inspector general of police, North Bengal Anand Kumar informed that the five have been arrested on corruption charges because they did not report the seizure and allowed the smugglers to go. Thw culprits have been booked for breach of trust, conspiracy and other sections of the Indian Penal Code and West Bengal Police Act.

On September 10, the CID officials informed that they had received information about huge quantity of gold would be smuggled from Bhutan. In order to nab the culprits, the army informed the officer-in-charge of Hasimara police outpost and a checkpoint was set at Torsha Bridge near Hasimara.

Reports inform that the accused army and police personnel intercepted a car and took hold of the gold and gave let the smugglers leave. However, the information was leaked and Ganesh Biswas, additional superintendent of police, Jaigoan, filed a complaint against the officers.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 16, 2018 10:02 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).