Liquor to Bihar in cement primer buckets

Tribune News Service

Sonepat, December 29

The mafia active in the Kharkhoda area of the district has adopted a new way to smuggle liquor to the “dry state” of Bihar. The Sonepat police have seized 30 buckets of cement primer filled with illicit Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), which was being smuggled to Bihar using two fake tax invoices.

Police: Probe on, too early to name any distillery

The police found more than 300 bottles of the IMFL packed in the cement primer buckets. The Excise Department has also been informed about the incident.

Those arrested in the case have been identified as Dhruv Kumar and Rana Pratap of Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh, Shiv Kumar Mukhiya of Madhepura district in Bihar and Satbir of Kharkhoda. After one-day police remand, the accused were on Thursday produced in a court that remanded them in judicial custody. Excise Inspector Ashok Malik said that the liquor seized by the police was of Imperial Blue brand. Further investigation was going on, he added.

Rahul Chaudhary, branch incharge of M/s Om Logistic Limited at Saidpur in Kharkhoda, had complained to the police that Satbir and his aide Ashutosh had booked a truck to ferry 30 buckets of cement primer to Darbhanga in Bihar. They produced two manual tax invoices in the name of GR Traders.

On suspicion, four to five cement primer buckets were randomly checked and IMFL bottles were found inside, he said. Saidpur police station incharge SI Ashok Kumar said the preliminary investigation showed that the accused were trying to use a fake tax invoice to smuggle liquor.

The arrested persons had packed liquor in buckets on the instructions of someone else whose name couldn’t be disclosed at this stage, he said. It would be too early to name any distillery. The name could be confirmed only after matching the records, the police official said. The accused admitted that they had sent liquor to Bihar earlier also, he said.

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