In a joint inspection conducted by the Railway Protection Force and the Excise squads, about 300 kg of banned tobacco products were seized from the Kozhikode Railway station's parcel office on Wednesday.
The products were illegally sent as ordinary consignments misusing the railway's parcel booking service. The checking was conducted on a request of the parcel service operators who came across the suspicious consignment during the delivery process.
Though the squads got confidential information about the sender and the addressee, they said an investigation could be launched only after confirming the authenticity of the details.
Excise Department officials said they were remaining highly alert on the shipping of suspicious consignments containing drugs in view of the Onam celebrations.
Since the launch of the special checking drive last week, the department had deployed checking squads in all crucial points. Excise Deputy Commissioner V.R. Anilkumar also inspected the seized consignments. He said the RPF and Excise squads would intensify joint inspections in the days to come under the special drive named “Operation Visudhi”.
The Excise department has called up on the Railway authorities to adopt scientific screening measures. One of the main demands was to introduce a system where the details of the sender are recorded in an accurate way for any future requirement.
