Mobile phone sellers at Dhaka’s Bashundhara City Shopping Mall confined a customs intelligence team for over an hour following a raid.
The sudden raid on illegally imported mobile phones agitated the traders, who blocked the Panthapath road in front of the shopping mall for three hours from 12pm.
Traders said that the customs officials have take away handsets worth millions without finishing the official procedure of preparing a seizure list.
They say only after the shopping mall authorities intervened, the officials provided them with the seizure list.
“The customs officials just barge in and take away the mobile phones without providing any documents. It has happened before,” Fahad, a staffer of Apple Zone, told Bangla Tribune.
Fakhrul Islam, owner of Mobile World, claimed the officials did not even want to see the documents against his inventory. “They just seize them and never return.”
According to one Md Mamum of ‘Phone Exchange’, the customs officials only seized iPhones and Samsung smartphones from their outlet.
Several other traders said that the customs raid on mobile phones is a regular thing before the Eid.
“If mobile phones are being sold illegally, they can take action against them. But before every Eid, we are harassed the businessmen,” said Nazimuddin, who runs a phone dealership at the mall.
The raid was led by Customs Intelligence’s Additional Director General Kazi Md Ziauddin with assistance of a RAB team.
“The raid is well within the legal boundary. We have seized 64 handsets from four shops and they will be returned after going through the documents,” he said denying allegations by traders/
Customs Intelligence Director General Shahidul Islam said that a zero tolerance policy has been adopted against illegal importing of mobile handsets.
Customs said in a statement that a total of 275 phones worth over Tk 20 million have been seized on Saturday during raids at several places in Dhaka.