Bags marked with chalk at MAA and BLR?
 

Arriving at BLR and MAA international terminals, I've seen checked bags coming out marked with a big chalk "C". Reportedly that means the bag needs to be physically inspected. Is that accurate, and how do they select which bags to mark? Wondering whether there is an airside scanner after the bags get unloaded from the plane. A friend told me that in his experience, when he flies with fancy hardshell bags, those get marked, whereas his cheap-looking bags don't. Anyone know the real story on this?

Indian customs in the smaller international airports usually screens baggage before it gets delivered to the pax. At the exit, they have signs telling pax with X on the checked bags to report to the officer.

When BLR T2 opened, the customs twitter/x feed proudly talked about this screening: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/indi...l#post35599543

CCU does the same. But during the pandemic they had one guy from the state health department spray each bag coming on the belt with some disinfectant which washed off any X. Inspired by that I now always have a wet wipe handy to wipe my bag when I take it off the belt :D

Thanks. I was specifically wondering what triggers the marking of the incoming bags. Based on that interesting Twitter feed, it looks like they must be scanning bags on arrival.

Same here. I always travel with a packet of wet wipes in case I need to do the same. I've very often have the dreaded X when landing in BOM but have never got one in DEL.

My father loves Whiskey so I usually buy good stuff here in Germany (far cheaper than any duty free offerings) and put it in my checked bag. Whenever there are 2 or more bottles in the bag I get the dreaded X. Some years ago (2022?) BOM customs required you to put your checked baggage on the screening at exit. The two bottles caused me to run around a bit with customs.

In general they are on the lookout for poor laborers coming back from the gulf and the traders who bring in electronics from SIN/BKK/KUL. That is far more lucrative for them.

I think at some point they used to mark every bag in BOM. The wet wipe trick works well. Also if you place the bag on the cart with the mark not visible, the guy at xray is usually too lazy to bother to move it around, specially if the cart is fully loaded.

On my last arrival into BOM in August, I had 1 bag marked with the X. But at the X-ray they were only requiring people to sent their HAND LUGGAGE through, while virtually everyones' suitcases (including mine) stayed on carts and bypassed the scan.
Wondering if they're simply now more interested in jewelry, laptops, phones, etc. that will be in hand luggage than liquor or large electronics?
This was on an arrival from FRA, so I don't know if things are different if there are a lot of gulf arrivals.

The idea is that people buy alcohol in the duty free store and keep valuable goods like gold close by. If they discover big items in the screening they probably message some officer to meet the pax at the belt :)

In Munich customs screens baggage coming from BKK that way. Interesting bags are held back and only released at the end. The officers stand at the belt and collect you with the bag on the spot.

It's hit and miss, at least at BOM. At the exit screening - when you are leaving the baggage collection area, usually the staff on duty adopt the rule of thumb of screening all smaller bags that look like carry-on bags, and skipping the larger ones (which presumably were screened separately). But this means that many bags that are small but were marked 'X' with chalk are screened, and others that are not marked are also screened, and some bags marked 'X' are not screened as well. So it's unclear what is really going on. Many times, the bags that someone is taking along with them on a trolley are oriented so the 'X' is visible from the rear, but the staff make no attempt to check it, going solely by size of the bag to ask for it to be put on the belt of the screening machine.

I have never seen the bags marked 'X' being asked to be opened for physical inspection.

It's possible the inspection or additional scrutiny of bags marked 'X' happens earlier at the point of bag collection and the secondary screening on exit is therefore independent of the 'X' marks. I've never had a checked bag with an 'X' (actually most times I don't have any checked bags at all) so I can't confirm this.

Ah, I dodged a (figurative) bullet years ago when I landed in BLR. I'd overnighted in London and bought two bottles of extraordinary whisky from DH's and my favorite shop there. Bag was marked with an X. A young man who worked there spotted the X and said my bag would need to be inspected. Uh-oh. I resolved to pay whatever duty the imposed rather than leave the whisky. I took it off the belt and another, more authoritative guy was hovering nearby. I said, "This young man says I need to have my bag inspected". He waved me on with no inspection. Huge sigh of relief. I'd always joked that when DH picked me up from trips to India he was more anxious about the safe arrival of the whisky than my arrival!

You would have been fine in this case though. Indian Customs allows the carriage of up to 2 liters of liquor per person without having to pay any duties.

For some reason I've always got a chalk squiggle on my bag in BOM and used to wipe it off like most other people. And I never have anything valuable in my checked bag - but often do have a bottle of wine. Last time I couldn't be bothered to find the wet wipes somewhere deep in my backpack and pointed the chalk mark out to the guy at the scanner while exiting and said I supposed I'd have to have the bag scanned. But he waved me through.

Had the chalk X on my checked-in bag on arrival in BOM a couple of weeks ago. Just rubbed it off with my palm and walked off. I suspect it was the 4lb tub of whey protein powder that they thought I was smuggling in.