Excise dept seizes liquor worth Rs11.4L, three held

Kolhapur: India Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth Rs11.4 lakh was seized by the state excise department from a car at Devale in Panhala taluka in the early hours of Wednesday.Besides the alcohol, the car in which it was being transported and four mobile phones were also seized — all amounting to Rs28.7 lakh. A case was registered against three suspects identified as Digvijay Rajaram Patil (44), Prafulla Himmatlal Padiya (44), and Ravindra Suresh Sawant (43), all residents of Sangli.Shahuwadi excise department inspector K B Biradar, while talking to TOI, said, "We had received information from our sources that liquor was being transported via the Shahuwadi-Panhala route in Kolhapur district. Accordingly, when we stopped a vehicle near Devale in Panhala tehsil of Kolhapur district, several IMFL bottles were found. When the three occupants of the car were questioned about the goods, they informed us that the liquor was being taken to Sangli."It was also revealed that Padiya hid some IMFL bottles in a warehouse in Sangli. A raid was conducted there and the alcohol was seized.