Kolkata, Dec 18: The winter session of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly is unlikely to take place within the current calendar year due to the pressure from the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the upcoming festive season, sources said on Thursday.

The second phase of the SIR exercise began on Tuesday with the publication of the draft voters’ list.

“First, the elected legislators are very busy with the ongoing SIR-related activities in areas under the jurisdiction of their respective Assembly constituencies. Secondly, the festive season is starting with Christmas on December 25, which again will engage the legislators with mass contact exercises in their respective constituencies. Taking these two factors into consideration, it is unlikely that the winter session will be held this year,” an insider from the West Bengal Assembly secretariat said.

Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee has also confirmed that he has not received any communication from the state government on convening the session. He added that several legislators have requested that the winter session not be convened immediately because of their involvement in the electoral roll revision exercise.

According to sources in the Assembly secretariat, there is a possibility that a short winter session may be held in January next year, followed by an interim Budget session in February.

“However, nothing is final as yet,” the sources said.

The Assembly last met in September this year, when a three-day special session was convened.

The winter session, whenever held, is expected to draw attention as former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee is likely to attend the House for the first time in nearly three years. Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in July 2022 in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school jobs scam.

Since his arrest, Chatterjee has been suspended from the Trinamool Congress and would attend the session as an Independent legislator. The session would also see the presence of Humayun Kabir, the suspended Trinamool rebel MLA from the Bharatpur Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, who will also sit as an Independent. The TMC suspended Kabir early this month after he decided to go ahead with the plan to lay the foundation of a Babri Masjid-style mosque in Murshidabad district on December 6, defying the party’s instructions.

Mumbai, Dec 18: Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) on Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Mahayuti government following reports of a debt-ridden farmer from Maharashtra allegedly selling his kidney in Cambodia to repay moneylenders.

The party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ editorial, titled “The Disgrace of the Soil”, described the incident not just as a crime, but as a “stain on the conscience of a state that calls itself progressive”.

The Thackeray camp, by linking this tragedy to the upcoming municipal elections, warned the “Marathi Manoos” that a government that cannot protect the physical integrity of its farmers cannot be trusted to protect the capital of the state. “Today it is a kidney; tomorrow, if these looters are not stopped, they will put the entire state up for auction,” it claimed.

The editorial highlighted the harrowing case of Roshan Sadashiv Kude, a farmer from Chandrapur in the Vidarbha region. After suffering total crop failure on his four-acre plot and losing his cattle to disease, Kude fell into a debt trap. Despite selling half his land, his tractor, and household belongings, he remained unable to meet the extortionate daily interest demands of Rs 10,000 imposed by local moneylenders.

The editorial noted with horror that it was the moneylender who allegedly “advised” and facilitated the farmer’s journey to Cambodia to sell his organ. “In the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, where farmers should be protected, they are being auctioned piece by piece in foreign lands,” claimed the editorial.

The Thackeray camp has accused the state administration of being “intoxicated by power” while ignoring the rural crisis. It pointed out that while the government is busy with “event management” and announcing pre-election schemes (Government Resolutions), the agricultural backbone of the state is collapsing. “The Deputy Chief Minister speaks of ‘New Maharashtra,’ but in this ‘New Maharashtra,’ a farmer has to cross international borders to sell his kidney to keep his family alive. The “administrative dacoity” regarding municipal looting has now extended to the very bodies of the poor,” it alleged.

The editorial slammed the police administration, saying that had it taken the action against the four money lenders, who have now been under arrest, in time, the farmer’s life could not have been devastated. At the national level, farmers are reeling under a debt burden of a whopping Rs 12 lakh crore, of which farmers from Maharashtra are bearing the burden of Rs eight lakh crore. It is so ironic that the Centre, which writes off the debt of industries, is not giving much-needed relief to farmers by providing a crop loan waiver, which is forcing the farmers to commit suicide.

According to the editorial, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had given a promise of crop loan waiver before the state Assembly elections, but now he has forgotten it after assuming power.

The Thackeray camp has demanded an immediate and “merciless” action against the moneylenders and the international syndicate involved in the kidney racket.

It has called for a high-level probe into the international organ trafficking links between Maharashtra and Cambodia, a debt waiver and an immediate audit of private moneylending practices in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has demanded the resignation of the Agriculture Minister over this failure of the state’s safety net.

Mumbai: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, in its report, stated that gold smuggling in the year 2024–25 remained concentrated in hotspots like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and West Bengal, serving as entry points or redistribution hubs due to their strategic location, higher number of flights and transit routes.

In 2024–25, the DRI seized 1,073 kg of gold having a market value of approximately Rs 785 crore, the report stated. Mumbai emerged as the main hotspot for gold smuggling through airports, far surpassing all other locations in both the quantity of gold seized and the number of cases detected, the agency stated in its report.

According to the DRI, gold smuggling syndicates operate through a structured network: masterminds located abroad or in India fund operations, organisers recruit carriers, carriers transport concealed gold into India, and handlers receive gold for delivery to key members of the network in India for further sale.

Sometimes, gold smuggled in forms other than foreign-origin bars, such as wax or jewellery, is melted into 24-carat bar form at illicit facilities, sold domestically, converted into jewellery and integrated into domestic markets. Proceeds are usually repatriated abroad via hawala or illegal forex channels, sustaining a multi-layered, highly networked smuggling operation.

“Air routes, especially flights from the Middle East and Southeast Asia that connect to metro and Tier-II airports, are the primary channel for gold smuggling into India. Smugglers exploit diverse passenger profiles, including women, families and airline crew, to smuggle gold into India. Increasingly, smugglers are also concealing gold inside aircraft cavities for later retrieval by crew, passengers or airport staff. Sometimes, gold concealed in the aircraft during the international leg is retrieved by passengers during the domestic leg of the aircraft. Further, transit passengers smuggle gold via body concealment and hand it over to airport staff,” the report stated.

“A more sophisticated and dangerous method involves concealing gold inside the human body. Syndicates mould gold in wax form into small capsules, which are then inserted into body cavities to evade detection by scanners and manual checks. This trend reflects a growing shift towards high-risk concealment techniques that endanger the carrier’s health,” stated the report.

“The gender profile of gold smuggling carriers for 2024–25 revealed that the majority of individuals apprehended were male. However, the presence of women, making up one-tenth of the persons apprehended, highlights a growing trend of female involvement, possibly due to perceptions of lower suspicion during checks. The domicile profile of gold smuggling carriers in 2024–25 indicates that the overwhelming majority were Indian nationals, which highlights the dominance of domestic carriers in gold smuggling. Carriers from Kenya and Iran contributed modestly, with isolated cases involving carriers from Thailand, Turkey, Afghanistan, Oman, the UAE and the USA,” the report further stated.