Dadu Majra vend worries Punjab

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, January 13

A liquor vend located on the Chandigarh-Mohali border has become a sore point for the Punjab Excise Department as illegal liquor, that too without the hologram, is being smuggled from here by bootleggers of Punjab.

Paramjit Singh, Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Mohali, said as the rates of the Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) as well as country-made liquor were less in Chandigarh as compared to Punjab, bootleggers, in order to make a quick buck, were indulging in smuggling of liquor from liquor vends in Chandigarh, especially the one located at Dadu Majra near the Mohali border.

He said most of liquor bottles seized by sleuths of the Excise Department, Mohali, were manufactured in various companies in the Chandigarh region. He said the liquor bottles did not carry the hologram, thus causing a loss to the UT Excise Department.

He said the smuggling of liquor from Chandigarh was badly affecting the sale in Punjab areas, causing a loss to the Excise Department of Punjab. The Assistant Commissioner said the two bootleggers, who were arrested by sleuths of a joint mobile wing of the Patiala and Mohali Excise Department late last night, had revealed that they had bought the consignment from the liquor vend at Dadu Majra. He said 336 bottles of liquor were recovered from their car near the Verka Milk plant in Mohali. The seized liquor bottles of Santra and Rajdhani whisky were manufactured at M/s Super Distillery, Industrial Area, Phase I, Chandigarh. The Bottoms Up whisky had been manufactured at M/s Empire Alcobreau Pvt Ltd, Industrial Area, Phase 2, Chandigarh. 

Tthe two suspects, Lakhvir Singh, a resident of Baheirh village in Bassi Pathana, and Avtar Singh, a resident of Majri village near Khamano in Fatehgarh Sahib district, were handed over to the Balongi police station.