The Excise and prohibition Department officials launched Statewide raids against the illegal country liquor, foreign wine producers and traders on the direction of Avinash Kumar, Secretary, Excise and Prohibition Department of GOJ. This fortnight long raid drive will continue till 19th of this month.
Kumar said that during the drive on July 5, as many as 74 cases were lodged against illegal country liquor/foreign wine producers and traders. As many as 53 illegal traders were arrested during the drive, whereas 11 accused fled from the spot.
Five arrested accused were booked and jailed. `1.85 lakh was recovered as penalty by the department during drive.
It was the launch of first major drive against illegal country liquor/foreign wine producers in the State after Kumar took charge of the Department after being transferred from Tourism, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs Department Secretary a couple of days ago.
“I am new to the (Excise) Department and trying to understand the modus operandi of illegal traders minutely. This is the first comprehensive drive under my leadership. I will try my best to keep these people away from business,” said Kumar.In fact, the Department had carried a similar drive of lesser span right before Ramnavmi this year also. That drive lasted for a week, in which some 50 people were fined and booked altogether.
But these have turned out more to be “routine” ones for seasoned players in this illegal business which not only plays with lives of innocent people, but also eats up revenue of the Government.
“We use to carry on routine one or two day drives on important festivals. But the fact is that we have loopholes in our system itself, which many a times turns armour for wrongdoers. I would not hesitate to state that we can’t eradicate this (illegal) business with current laws and loopholes.
The case goes from our hand the moment police registers complaints lodged by us…many times witness turns hostile. And problems like these only blunt the edge of such drives,” said Excise Commissioner Vinod Shanker Singh.He even admitted that department felt ‘helpless’ with increasing number of influential people in this illegal business. “We had sealed an illegal country liquor manufacturing factory in Namkum last month.
We arrested people working there and they all were just labourers. The name of owner appeared to be one influential person sitting in Himachal Pradesh, and the Police even included his name in FIR. But he is still enjoying a free life,” said Singh. He added that this was just another example. But he also reiterated that the Department will carry on drives like this to save people from hooch.