In the breakthrough of the rigorous investigation by the Agartala city police over sudden recovery of a huge amount of cash from Kanchenjunga express before its departure from Agartala railway station for two alternate days, an inter-state gold smuggling racket was busted.

Police sources said that after Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) recovered a total of Rs. 76.13 lakh cash from coaches of Kanchenjunga express at Agartala railway station on February 14 and 17 and subsequent arrest of three persons including two women from Maharashtra state, the Agartala city police on Monday arrested another youth involved with gold smuggling racket.

Giving details of the cases, Officer-in-charge (OC) West Agartala police station, Paritosh Das said that after recovery of Rs.66.57 lakh unclaimed money that during regular checking of the Kolkata bound Kanchenjunga express on February 14 evening, the Government Railway Police (GRP) again on Saturday (February 17) morning recovered a total of Rs. 9.56 lakh from three persons including two women from Kanchenjunga express, just few minutes before its departure towards Kolkata.

Later, GRP handed over the case to West Agartala police station and police arrested Sudhir Shinde, Krishna Shinde and Seema Shinde, who arrived in Agartala city three days ago and on Saturday morning boarded at Kanchenjunga express to reach Kolkata with cash amount.

During interrogation to arrested trio, police learnt that they are frequently travelling Agartala and Maharashtra with solid gold bars and other gold ornaments for selling into markets of Agartala, said Das and added that they also revealed that they are selling the solid gold bars to a youth, identified as Santosh Sitaram Shinde, who is working at the Ganesh Patel Gold Refinery, located at Kaman Chowmuhani area as worker, who was assigned for melting task of gold bars.

OC Paritosh Das added that  Santosh Sitaram Shinde by involving his close-relatives including arrested Sudhir Shinde, Krishna Shinde and Seema Shinde engaged with smuggling of gold bars from Maharashtra to Tripura and by melting in the Ganesh Patel Gold Refinery, he often sold it in local markets.

Das added that based on the confessional statements of earlier arrested three persons, police on Monday arrested Santosh Sitaram Shinde and forwarded them before a local court by registering a specific stolen case. Court sends them in three days police custody and police are hoping that they will get vital information over inter-state gold smuggling racket.