Balurghat (WB): The Border Security Force's (BSF) 137 Battalion recovered a suspicious jar full of liquid snake poison on the Indo-Bangladesh border on Monday. The jar of snake venom was recovered from the Pahan para border of Goeshpur BOP of Hilli in the South Dinajpur district. The international market value of this venom is a whopping Rs 13 crore.
While the poison was recovered, the two smugglers carrying it managed to escape across the border to Bangladesh. According to a BSF official, the force acted upon the inputs received about the precious poison being smuggled into India. Accordingly, the BSF team started waiting secretly in Pahanpara village on the Indian area of the border around 12:30 am on Monday.
Soon after, two smugglers from Bangladesh came towards the border. As soon as they entered the Indian territory, the BSF asked them to stop. But they started running towards Bangladesh. BSF fired a round to stop them but the two managed to slip back in. After that, the border guards started searching for the goods left behind by the smugglers when they recovered the jar filled with poison.
The jar had markings 'Cobra SP - Red Dragon -Made in France - Code No- 6097'. BSF believes that the recovered liquid is cobra snake venom. The 137 Battalion of the BSF informed that no casualty was reported in the BSF firing. The jar of recovered snake venom was handed over to the forest department of Balurghat range on Monday afternoon.
Interestingly, in 2021, a similar case of poison smuggling had been reported from the same district. BSF had then recovered snake poison worth Rs 57 crore in crystal bottles with similar markings.
