Mumbai: Two people have been detained at the city’s international airport while trying to smuggle a huge consignment of peafowl tail feathers. The two — Akshay Kumar who hails from Delhi and Reena Kumar from Haryana — were about to board a Sri Lankan Airlines flight to Bangkok via Colombo late Friday.
Export of Indian Peafowl feathers is prohibited under the Wildlife Act.
Trolley bags of the two contained over 2 lakh feather weighing 68 kg, and valued around Rs 14.30 lakh concealed ingeniously, Customs officials said, adding that it “indicated premeditated smuggling” activity. —S Ahmed Ali