Date: 03/04/2023 Shift: Q. No: 99

Smuggling literally means bringing into a country or sending out of it, goods without paying custom duty. This is an unlawful sort of business. It does harm to the people as well as to the country. It is an anti-social activity. Smugglers amass black money and unaccounted wealth. They disrupt national economy, evade payment of income tax and other taxes and cause a huge drain on freeing exchange. They set up a parallel economy, so to say. Ever since the independence of the country, smuggling has been going on thereby doing great damages to the national economy.
On 17th of September, 1974 The President of India suddenly issued an ordinance to enable the Government to arrest and detain smugglers for up to two years under MISA (maintenance of Internal Security Act.) As a result of this the customs officer, income-tax, authorities and the police declared their war on smugglers. In the biggest anti-smuggling operation such notorious smuggler kings as Haji Mastan, Bakhia, Yusuf Patel and others were arrested. The black money worth crores of rupees was unearthed. Effort was made to smash the vast organisation that the smuggler kings had built up in various parts of the world. The smuggling and marketing methods had been thoroughly studied before launching the campaign to end them.
The war on smuggling formed a part of the Government’s policy to check inflation. The Government had already seized illegal property, unaccounted wealth and black money. Raids were made on all big houses which had been evading payment of taxes and hiding wealth.