Excise Dept seizes lahan, illicit liquor

A joint team of the Excise and Forest Departments conducted a day-long search operation in the mand area of Kiarrian village here on Friday, on both sides of the Beas river, and recovered a huge quantity of lahan and illicit liquor.

Eyebrows are being raised in certain quarters that such action has been undertaken with much delay by the state government as part of ‘Yudh Nashian Virudh’ campaign which started from March 1. The raid was conducted after two months accompanied by a huge force.

Sources in the Excise Department revealed that the joint raid was conducted under the supervision of Excise Officer Inderjeet Singh Sehzra (Tarn Taran) and Excise Officer Rajnish Batra (Ferozepur), District Forest Officer Lakhwinder Singh, Range Officer Kamaljit Singh, Excise Inspector (EI) Ram Murti, EI Hitesh Prabhakar, EI Karan Sharma of district Tarn Taran and Rajbir Singh, EI Ferozepur, in mand area at village Kirrian on both side of the Beas river. The department said that teams from different sites recovered lahan and 200 bottles of illicit liquor. The excise officials said it was destroyed on the spot as the stock was unclaimed.