Police at the KMC Hospital here have an unlikable but critical task: they’re waiting for an alleged gold smuggler to empty his bowels.
Shashidharan, a 44-year-old passenger from Dubai, swallowed gold in the form of pellets, so that he can avoid detection by airport scanners, and he did make it past customs officials at the Mangalore International Airport on January 31. But his body gave away the secret
Shashidharan reportedly ingested 32-35 gold pellets weighing 300gm from Kerala’s Kanhangad. As his bowel movements were not usual, the pellets didn’t get expelled as planned and he pumped in laxatives to speed up things. That’s when he started getting unbearable abdominal pain.
He explained his predicament to doctors of KMC on Wednesday. They without delayed called Mangalore South police and the issue was referred to the customs department.
Dr Madhusudan Upadhyay, medical superintendent of KMC Hospital, told the reporters, “The patient came with the mass, which according to him are gold pellets, stuck on the left side of the ascending colon. After administering enema and laxatives, the mass has moved to the descending colon”.
The pellets were apparently clumped together with faeces and had got firmly stuck Dr Upadhyay said. He added that by Friday the pellets should come out without any intervention. According to Sources, Shashidharan was a mule transporting the gold for another party, whose name he has not revealed.