Tinsel town
About 100 kg of gold and silver is being sold in jewellery shops in Tripura every month, according to the Tripura Chamber of Commerce. Traditionally, families in Tripura have had a huge stock of gold because tribal people had been gifted gold by erstwhile kings and during the post-1971 exodus from Bangladesh, non-tribal families brought only gold with them. Now Tripura is importing gold to meet the growing demand. It is illegally transported from South Africa and West Asia through Bangladesh and Myanmar.