HYDERABAD, 6 September 2005 — A senior government official was detained by the customs at Hyderabad airport on Sunday night as he was boarding a flight to Bangalore with 2.1 million rupees ($48,800) in cash.
G. Anantha Ramu, a senior Indian Administrative Service officer and director of technical education, chose to travel by Indian Airlines Flight IC961 (Hyderabad-Sharjah) via Bangalore after the Jet Airways flight on which he was booked was delayed.
A Central Industrial Security Force sub-inspector noticed a carton inside the baggage of Anantha Ramu as it passed through the X-ray scanner during security check. The sub-inspector opened the carton and found wads of currency in 1,000-rupee and 500-rupee denominations. The officer was detained for questioning by customs and central excise officials, as he had not declared the cash in his domestic passenger declaration form, a mandatory requirement for passengers carrying large amounts of cash.
Anantha Ramu reportedly told the officials that he could not fill out the form as he was in a hurry. He explained the reasons for carrying the cash and also the delayed domestic flight that made him take the international flight. He was carrying cash for his father-in-law’s medical expenses in a Bangalore hospital. The moeny was part of the advance amount he received from the sale of his wife’s property at Kukatpally on the outskirts of the city. The customs and central excise officials handed over the case to the Income Tax Department for inquiry about the “legality of the cash.”
