Customs extracted ₹90.56 lakh of gold from airport paste. The Kannur courier shoved the superintendent and is still absconding.

The paste was seized at the airport. The metal came out at Shamshabad. The courier, police say, did not wait for the valuation.

On Thursday morning, 20 August 2026, the Air Intelligence Unit at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport intercepted T P Sadakkathulla, a resident of Kannur district, Kerala, after he arrived on an IndiGo flight from Thiruvananthapuram. A scan of his backpack allegedly revealed a black packet of gold paste. Customs seized 697 grams of gold paste. Seized is the verb. Convicted is not.

An RGIA police officer’s account on the public card says Sadakkathulla admitted he had picked up the packet from under his seat; that it was left by an international passenger on the same aircraft’s previous Sharjah–Thiruvananthapuram leg; and that he was offered ₹10,000 by the gang to pick it up and hand it to a contact outside the airport. Those sentences are police and customs allegations, not a conviction. This desk will not invent the Sharjah passenger’s name, the outside contact, or a second accused.

The 697-gram packet was taken to a gold extraction facility at RB Nagar near Shamshabad. There, on the same filing, Sadakkathulla allegedly pushed air customs superintendent Lavkesh Kumar Meena and fled. Smelting continued. A government-approved valuer assessed the extracted metal at 570.03 grams of 24-carat gold, valued at ₹90.56 lakh. ₹90.56 lakh is the valuation figure on the card. 570.03 grams is the extracted weight. 697 grams was the paste weight. This desk will not collapse paste grams into pure grams.

Gold and backpack were sealed. A panchnama with witness statements was drawn. Mobile and Aadhaar were handed to police with Meena’s complaint. RGIA police registered a case under Section 262 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita — resistance or obstruction to lawful apprehension. The officer’s line on the 22 August desks: the accused is on the run. Absconding is the status this desk will print. A catch is not on the card. This desk will not invent a recovery of the absconder.

Thursday is the intercept. Saturday’s desks carried the story because the courier was still missing. Rangareddy holds Shamshabad and the airport. Kannur is where the accused is from on the card. IndiGo Thiruvananthapuram–Hyderabad is the flight line. Sharjah–Thiruvananthapuram is the previous leg in the police account.

What is not here is a named Sharjah passenger, a named outside contact, a second arrested courier, or a closed capture. What is here is 697 grams of paste, 570.03 grams of 24-carat gold, ₹90.56 lakh, ₹10,000 alleged pickup fee, a shove at the smelt, Section 262 BNS, and an absconding Kannur accused.

Until police write a catch, the courier is absconding. Until a court writes, every admission on this page is an allegation on a police account. The sealed paste and the empty chair at the extraction table are the public picture.