Illegal liquor worth over Rs 60 lakh seized in Badaun

Pilibhit: An enforcement team of the excise department in association with the civil police recovered as many as 1158 boxes of Haryana-made whisky worth Rs 62 lakh from a truck in Badaun district on Friday. An FIR has been lodged and three persons have been arrested.

An anti-liquor drive has been ordered by the additional chief secretary of excise, Sanjay R. Bhoosreddy, in view of the forthcoming panchayat elections and the festival of Holi.

Excise inspector Neeraj Singh said that the recovery was made at Myaun T junction under Alapur police station following a tip-off. The truck was on its way from Haryana to Arunachal Pradesh. The truck driver could not produce the transit permit, the valid documents of the whisky stock and the registration papers of the truck, he added.

Station house officer OP Gautam said that the police arrested three persons from the truck who have been identified as Vijay Kumar, Jatin Sharma and Sunil Kumar from Panchkula in Haryana.

The accused have been booked under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing the delivery of property) of the IPC and section 63/72 of the Excise Act in first FIR, and under section 207 of the Motor Vehicle Act in the second FIR, he said.