KATHMANDU: Following the seizure of a large amount of gold that somehow got out of the customs office at Tribhuvan International Airport, the Department of Customs has formed a six-member probe committee to investigate the incident.

Punya Bikram Khadka, information officer of the DoC said that a six-member probe committee under the leadership of Man Bahadur Paudel, director at the Department of Revenue Investigation, was formed to investigate how the gold was smuggled outside the airport. 'The probe will find out if any employee was an accomplice in the racket or the swindlers were able to trick the employees,' Khadka said. He also said the probe committee would find if the smuggled gold hidden inside various objects were actually passed through gold detecting doors there or not.

The DoC is also prepared to suspend employees deployed on the night of July 18, who were supposed to manually inspect the motorbike spare parts mostly the brake shoes where the gold was hidden. 'The decision to suspend employees, however, will be taken on the basis of the probe report, which the committee is mandated to submit within six working days,' Khadka said.

A version of this article appears in the print on July 21, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.