Theft at high security places unacceptable

Reports on burglars breaking into jewellery shops and residential quarters and stealing valuables including gold ornaments often hit the headlines and few eyebrows are raised over those incidents. But such reports sound shocking when those are on robberies in highly secured places like bank vaults or customs house lockers. In the latest such incident, which was the lead report of the Sunday (September 3) issue of this paper, gold bars and ornaments weighing over 55 kilogrammes and valued at around Tk360 million were found missing from a locker of the Dhaka Customs House (DCH) at the Shahjalal International Airport (SIA). Actually, as told by some DCH insiders as well as the police, the purported heist did not occur on the day its evidence was found that is on Saturday (September 2). Notably, those ornaments and pieces of gold missing from the DCH's locker were secured there, according to the customs people, after confiscating those over a period of time between 2020 and 2023 from incoming passengers at the relevant SIA checkpoint. So, those were awaiting their release from the DCH's vault following payments of due taxes, duties including fines by their owners.
At this point, question arises as to why those valuables were kept at the DCH locker for around two to three years, though, according to usual practice, those could be kept there until their owners returned and claimed those after payment of the dues as necessary. But the procedure should not have taken this long as it has happened in this case. In case of any inordinate delays, for whatever reasons, in releasing the confiscated valuables from DCH locker, those should have been, as is usual, transferred to the central bank's vault. Strangely though, that has not happened in this particular case. In view of the DCH commissioner working for the automation of the warehouse, the act of thievery, in all probabilities, would remain undetected had the checking of the DCH warehouse inventory not started a few days back. The attempt to pass the case as one of burglary by showing the law-enforcers a broken window of the warehouse's toilet, as reported in the media, only points to insider-involvement in the theft, believe some DCH officials and the police.
Since some revenue officials and guards responsible for the security of the warehouse in question have been arrested following filing of a complaint with local police station by the DCH authority, one would like to believe that the case would be resolved soon. But questions would still remain as to why such robbery should take place at all at such a Key Point Installation (KPI) like the SIA which is not only under constant electronic surveillance, but is also being watched round the clock by security officials from several government agencies including the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the different branches of the police and the intelligence departments. It may be recalled here the incident of a similar kind of replacing gold discs and rings weighing close to 1,000 kg with fake ones in the BB vault as reported in 2018 or the robbery of 19 kg gold from the customs locker at Benapole land port in 2019. All those places were highly secured.
Until the real culprits behind these thefts at high security government installations --- whether committed by insiders or outsiders or both in cahoots with one another --- are held and brought to exemplary justice, such occurrences will continue. These need to be stopped forthwith.