Now, bootleggers use maal-gaadi to ferry liquor

AHMEDABAD: After the hooch tragedy, police may have become vigilant, but Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) continues to flow into Gujarat. Bootleggers are constantly devising new methods to smuggle the contraband into the state, latest being goods trains.
Earlier, liquor used to be sourced from Daman, transported to Mumbai and then loaded on Surat-bound passenger trains.But after raids on trains and passengers themselves exposing the bootleggers, goods trains are turning out to be a 'safer' carrier to smuggle liquor. In February this year before the Lok Sabha elections, prohibition laws were strictly enforced and bootleggers had begun to use passenger trains for ferrying liquor. The consignments in cartons are parked on seats meant for passengers. On one such journey, passengers in the general coaches got annoyed and threw bottles out of the window near Surat.
With railway police getting strict, Gujarat's bootleggers go to Daman, load trucks and take them to Vasai in Maharashtra, and load it on passenger trains. Sampark Kranti express is the most popular carrier because it travels non-stop between Vasai and Surat.
Superintendent of police (western railway) ND Solanki says, "We have seized liquor worth Rs 38,000 from Sampark Kranti express and now have posted policemen for surveillance at Vasai station."
But the newest modus operandi is to load IMFL in empty coaches of goods trains and unload it at stoppages on the outskirts of main stations. Recently, liquor worth Rs 40,000 was offloaded at Udhna station. However, the police removed the bit about the consignment arriving in goods trains and simply recorded the quantity of booze seized in the complaint.
Solanki told TOI, "We got information that the police had dropped the bit about the liquor coming on goods train and are probing the matter further."