Chittagong Customs House has put forward a proposal to the National Board of Revenue to form separate dog squads for the Chittagong port and the Hazrat Shah Amanat International Airport to make the CCH better equipped to check smuggling of contraband goods, particularly narcotics, through the channels. CCH officials said the port city customs authorities had recently made the proposal to the NBR as formation of customs dog squads for the Chittagong port and the HSAIA, two key entry-points to the country would help them to detect and prevent smuggling of illegal goods which are harmful for and threat to public health and safety.
‘We have made a proposal to create dog squads for the Chittagong customs to make it better equipped to detect and prevent smuggling of illegal items through the two major international ports in the country,’ CCH commissioner Masud Sadik told New Age on Saturday.
He said the CCH authorities would submit a detailed concept paper on the issue to the revenue board if it accepts the idea.
In its proposal, the CCH said that a dog squad consists of 20 German Shepherd or Labrador dogs could be formed for the Chittagong port, the main seaport that handles more than 90 per cent of import and export of the country.
Officials of the CCH said that smuggling of narcotics, fire arms, contraband medicine and other items, explosive, chemicals which are harmful for human health and threat to public safety, gold and foreign currencies had been increasing over the last few years.
Though smugglers use different routes including long unprotected borders of the country, usually international airports and seaports are considered vulnerable to smuggling of drugs.
The Chittagong port remains at a major risk of smuggling of narcotics mainly Yaba tables, heroin, marijuana, cannabis and amphetamine and firearms, CCH official said.
The Chittagong airport is also at risk of being used as safe route for smuggling narcotics particularly Yaba as transportation of passengers and goods from some countries of Middle East and South East Asia has increased through the airport in recent time, they said.
In these circumstances, a separate dog squad is crucial for the airport, CCH proposal said.
As part of multi-layer security to check and prevent smuggling, formation of dog squads for customs offices are extremely important, it said.
According to the NBR, customs authorities in many developed and developing countries in Europe and Asia have dog squads for preventing import and export of narcotics and other contraband items.
In Asia, customs authorities of Japan, South Korea, China, India, Taiwan and some other countries are working with dog squads.
In Bangladesh, law enforcing agencies including police and RAB have dog squads and those squads are being used to prevent crimes.
The CCH said that customs officials might be trained with technical assistance from police, RAB and Bangladesh Army for forming dog squads.
They can also get training from foreign customs authorities who have dog squads, it said.
-With New Age input
