Suspected containers delivery at Ctg port under special watch
Six hundred and fifteen containers of a foreign vessel are kept under special watch in Chittagong port over suspicion of carrying illegal goods or explosives. The photo was taken yesterday.Photo: STAR
The 615 containers of a foreign vessel kept under watch suspecting illegal items or explosives in any of those will be delivered under a special supervision in presence of representatives both from the customs and port authorities. Chittagong Customs House yesterday morning decided to start random scanning of all the containers but later changed its decision finding the process difficult and time consuming. Turkish-flagged cargo vessel MV Cristina A, carrying 615 containers, berthed at the jetty no 13 of Chittagong Port around 1:00pm on Friday. Later, Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) kept the containers equivalent to 973 TEUs (twenty equivalent units) under watch following information from an intelligence agency that it suspected illegal items like explosive in one or more containers in the foreign vessel. 592 containers, out of the 615, were unloaded by Saturday evening. The rest 23 were on the board till filing of this report at 6:00pm yesterday as the respective seal numbers on the containers did not match with the import documents like copies of Import General Manifest (IGM). Md Amiruzzaman, manager of the berth operator M/s Bashir Ahmed that is responsible for handling containers of the vessel, said the local shipping agent was providing undertakings against the containers and they would start unloading the 23 boxes after receiving the undertakings. The vessel is scheduled to leave the port around 10:00am this morning, he said. CPA Director (Security) Lt Col Md Moazzem Hossain said all the containers would be unloaded and kept in port yards amidst security. Additional Commissioner of Chittagong Customs House Dr Md Motiur Rahman told The Daily Star that they have lack of enough equipment needed for scanning all the containers and at the same time the process is time consuming and expensive. He said the containers would be delivered through a normal procedure following submission of bill of entries by the respective clearing and forwarding (C&F) agents. But the representatives from CPA and Customs House would be present during delivery of each of the containers, said the additional commissioner.
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