Inter-state illicit liquor racket busted, 3,280 litre spirit seized at Surajpur

Rajiv Mahajan

Nurpur, April 8

The Nurpur district police have busted an inter-state liquor racket last evening and seized 82 plastic cans containing 40-litre spirit each from a palatial house at Surajpur under the Damtal police station jurisdiction in Indora subdivision of Kangra district.

Following a tip-off, the police team under the direction of Nurpur SP Ashok Ratan raided the house and recovered spirit cans hidden underground in the room. The police also seized Rs 9.09 lakh cash from the possession of the house owner, identified as Rakeshwar Singh of Surajpur village.

The SP said the accused had been arrested by the police and a case under Section 39(1) of the HP Excise Act was registered against him. He said the accused was produced in the court on Monday and remanded in police custody to establish inter-state connection of the accused in procuring and selling of the seized raw material (spirit). He said the preliminary investigation revealed that the accused had been procuring spirit from a manufacturer or a supplier at Pinjore in Haryana.

As per information, one litre of spirit can produce 4-5 litres of alcohol through fermentation process. The seized 3280-litre spirit can produce around 16,000 litres of alcohol. “The arrested accused who had kept hidden a huge quantity of spirit underground in this house can be a supplier of raw material to hooch brewers outside the state,” one local liquor vendor said.

The police suspect that the accused is a big stockist of illicit spirit and has an inter-state network of procuring and supplying spirit illegally to distilleries running in neighbouring states, which prepare spurious illicit liquor through fermentation and distillation of spirit.

“The Election Commission of India has issued clear guidelines to the police to conduct a thorough investigation and ascertain backward and forward tracing if such major recovery of illicit material is made and now the police will conduct a probe under the guidelines of the ECI,” the SP said.