SATISH HANDA
CIA Staff-2 of Kurukshetra police along with Excise Department Ambala led by Aalok Passi DETC and Bhagat Singh ETO raided a factory manufacturing illicit country made liquor in two rented residential houses in Shyam Colony near police station Saha at a distance of about 12 km from Ambala. They used to smuggle illicit liquor to Punjab, U.P, Chandigarh and few towns in Haryana state. DSP Headquarter Kurukshetra Subhash Chander told that police party during checking at a barrier at Shahabad in Kurukshetra district seized 56 cases illicit liquor in Malta Club brand from a Tata-S vehicle and during preliminary investigation the driver told that they collected stocks from a factory at Saha for deliver at Karnal and Panipat.
The raiding team arrested two persons identified as Sachin alias Gholu originally hailing from Panipat and Sunil a resident of village Badot in Sonepat district and started search for another six persons managed to escape including Sanjay a resident of Panipat used to prepare illicit liquor in two residential houses. Sachin failed to produce rent deed agreements of both premises the owner of one of them was residing in abroad. During search, the raiding team collected 400 litre fake liquor, 21 cases Desi liquor, 5880 empty bottles, corks, two filling machines, seven types of labels of different brands packed in six bags, two tanks of 2000 litre capacity, 1 tank of 100 litre capacity, chemical used to produce liquor, large number of drums, a Tata 407 vehicle and two motorcycles parked outside the premises.
Surprisingly, in-spite of tall claims, Ambala has become a hub for manufacture, smuggling and door-to-door sale of illicit liquor in the state since past sometime. Police and excise department recently busted two rackets involved in manufacturing fake liquor in recent past including a factory at village Mandaur producing rum, another factory at village Durana. Past scenario reveals that sale of illicit liquor witnessed drastic increase during KOVID-19 epidemic outbreak in 2020 in-spite of large number of raids by police as well as excise department as compared to the previous year 2019 when district police had registered 77 cases smuggling illicit liquor and arrested 104 persons, whereas The number of cases registered in 2020 increased to 308 with the arrest of 363 persons.
According to Ambala police record, during the year 2019 district police had recovered 76492 litre illicit country-made liquor which reduced to 37705 litre in the year 2020. Similarly, police recovered 77228 bottles English wine during raids in 2019 which reduced to 34270 bottles in the year 2020. Ambala police and excise department had recovered 888 bottles rum in the year 2019 and the quantity reduced to 339 bottles in the year 2020. Hameed Akhtar SSP Ambala told media persons that Ambala police had registered 13 cases of liquor smuggling during the month February 2021 and arrested 14 persons. He made an appeal that a special award will be given to the informers of this illegal business and thei names will be kept secret, he assured.
