Mumbai, May 19: Bollywood actor Minissha Lamba was released from detention by Customs officials at the Mumbai international airport at around 12:30 am on Thursday, after she gave a written undertaking.
It has been a diastrous trip for Minissha, who had gone to walk the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
What began as a dream red-carpet walk wound up with a detention in the far-from-glamorous Custom's interrogation room at the Mumbai airport, reports Mumbai Mirror .
The actress, who was in Cannes for the premier of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, almost missed her red carpet moment, had people tripping over her trailing Gauri and Nainika gown and lost her baggage at Nice airport.
To add insult to injury, she was detained for over 12 hours at the Mumbai airport for carrying undeclared diamond jewellery.
In her excitement to rub shoulders with the mighties of filmdom, the starlet apparently forgot to carry the all-important letter from the jeweller who had loaned her Rs 40 lakh worth of diamond jewellery to flash on her big day.
What complicated her case was that Minissha had seemingly forgotten to declare the jewellery on her way to France.
Around 8.30 am on Wednesday, Minissha, who arrived by an Emirates flight was intercepted by Assistant Commissioner of Police Sameer Wankhede while she was passing through the Green Channel. After screening and checking of her baggage, the Customs officials found undeclared jewellery.
On questioning, Minissha said that she had carried the valuables even while leaving the country but forgot to declare them. She was carrying diamond studded semi-precious stone and assorted jewellery.
“Minissha was supposed to obtain an export certificate from the Customs department while she was leaving the country. Since she had not followed the procedure, she was detained for not declaring the valuables,” a Customs officer said.
According to the officer, Minissha told them that the valuables do belong to her, but were given to her by Anmol Jewellers for the festival.
She also told the officials that she was given the jewellery for the “purpose of promotion” at Cannes.
“A jewellery evaluator was called by the Custom officials to ascertain the exact value of the jewellery.
Lamba appeared calm and co-operated during the questioning and told the officers that it was an inadvertent mistake on her part,” said the officer.
However, Customs authorities didn't find any document on her that could support her claims.
A spokesperson from Anmol Jewellers said, “Minissha had carried some of our jewellery, worth around Rs 40 lakh, with her for promotional purposes to Cannes and we had done the necessary paperwork for it. Unfortunately she forgot to carry the document.
We are aware of the situation at Customs and are in constant touch with them to sort out the matter. We have also forwarded a copy of the document to them.”
Meanwhile, the customs officers were seriously considering an arrest. “The matter is complicated that's why only after investigation, it will be decided whether to arrest her or not,” said Commissioner, Customs, P M Govande.
Thankfully for Minissha, the relevant documents from Anmol arrived just in time to save her from further embarrassment, and at the time of going to press to, the actress was preparing to walk out of the airport.
The actress had been tweeting about her harassment at Nice airport where her baggage went missing, and also gave interviews about how she nearly missed her call for the walking into the star-studded Woody Allen premier because of a miscommunication.
