A month’s countdown to the lok Sabha elections of 2014, the City Beautiful is witnessing a spurt, in the sale of bootlegged liquor and liquor smuggling. Around 40 cases have been registered under the Excise Act in the first week of March.
According to the official figures of the Chandigarh police 49 cases were registered in February, while around 40 cases have been registered in the first week of March by the Excise Department.
During the elections and time period preceding it, large quantities of liquor is smuggled in the colonies in the city and from here these bottles are transported to different part of the country. Special raids are been carried out to check the flow of illegal liquor, said police sources.
Jagbeer Singh, DSP, Crime branch said “During a raid conducted specially to crack down on the liquor mafia against the sale and purchase of illicit liquor, Chandigarh police and the crime branch have recovered more than 10,000 bootlegged bottles of liquor from various seizures so far.”
The official added the areas with maximum number of such cases, fall under the jurisdictions of police stations of Manimajra, Industrial Area and Sector 11 which houses the migrant labourers of the city and are considered to be the prime votebank in the city electoral seats. The liquor bottles are being smuggled from Chandigarh to different parts of Uttar Pradesh.
On Monday, Chandigarh police arrested two persons, at a special checkpost erected near the Railway Bridge, while they were carrying 792 cartons of illegal whiskey in a truck (HR-46-B-1549).
PNS