According to reports, Shah Rukh Khan and five members of his team were detained at the Mumbai airport for an hour by Customs duty officials in the early hours of Saturday. Reportedly, the superstar and his team were stopped for not paying Customs duty for six luxury watches as the payment facility was not operational at GAT. An official confirmed to a media agency that the Customs duty officials found six expensive watches in one of the bags while screening Shah Rukh and his team members' luggage. The watches were said to be found in the actor's security guard Ravi Shankar Singh's bag. Reportedly, as per Customs' evaluation, they were worth Rs 17.86 lakhs.
However, reports had suggested that SRK was carrying expensive watches, when in fact, the items were watch winder cases instead. A senior customs officer further revealed, "Then, Ravi Singh, who is from SRK's security team (Ravi is Shah Rukh Khan's trusted bodyguard) was escorted with one bag, which had the goods for payment of duty along with one customs officer to Terminal 2. Over there, Ravi paid the customs duty of Rs 6.88 lakhs (calculated as per the customs duty of 38.5 percent)."
Shah Rukh, his manager Pooja Dadlani and 3 others were allowed to go after some time. However, Ravi was taken to Terminal -II of the airport, where Rs. 6.88 lakhs had to be paid towards Customs duty for the watches. While the challan was reportedly in the name of Ravi, the duty was paid on Shah Rukh's behalf. He was allowed to leave the airport after the procedure was completed.
Shah Rukh was returning to Mumbai after attending the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2022 which was held on Friday.
(Source: Inputs from PTI)
