A high-level meeting of the Civil Aviation Ministry yesterday decided to bring the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport under constant close surveillance to prevent gold smuggling.
To this end, the meeting decided to instal more CCTV cameras in cargoes and hangers.
“Schedule is the main problem. Though a Tk20 crore software package was procured more than three years back it had never been used. We have decided to introduce it by November 30,” Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday after the meeting.
Some identified officials make between Tk10 and Tk50 lakh from every flight that lands from Dubai and Jeddah, said an official in the Biman. This is why they always want to manipulate the schedules at their will, he further added.
If there is a system operating it will be difficult for them to commit crimes and that is why they are always dead against installation of a software, he said.
Menon said they also decided to form a task-force to monitor the situation and it will also update the ministry time to time on their findings.
Earlier, the detectives detained five, including three Biman senior officials for their involvement in gold smuggling.
Opposition and independent lawmakers even walked out of the House in protest against a large amount of gold haul seized at the Shahjalal International Airport.
The legislators also demanded removal of board Chairman Air-vice Marshal (retd) Jamal Uddin Ahmed.
Jamal Uddin Ahmed attended yesterdays meeting. He declined to make any comment on the gold smuggling and corruption in the Biman Bangladesh.
He even refused to resign from his post, “I will resign if only the prime minister asks me to do so.”
Meeting sources said it also decided to send letters to the editors and news chiefs of newspapers and other media houses.
“We have sent the letters to the media houses requesting the editors not to make any report which will go against the national pride,” Mosharaf Hosen Khan, general manager (public relations) of Biman, said.