A team of Jharkhand Excise officials raided a place at Carriage Colony in Burmamines and seized Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) worth over Rs 7 lakh on Monday.
During the raid, the Excise team arrested two persons who were involved in filling low quality IMFL into the bottles having brands of higher prices for selling the rebottled liquor into the market of rural areas in Jharkhand, Odisha and even in Bihar.
The two arrested persons were workers, but the main racketeer managed to flee. Beside the racketeer, half-a-dozen other workers also managed to escape at the sight of the approaching raiding party.
Excise sub-inspector J Kujur said that they seized a total 144 cartons of IMFL from the place where the liquor was being filled up into the brand of higher price.
" Acting on a tip off we conducted the raid. It was like a mini-factory. For the rebottling work, they had managed to arrange stickers, corks, empty bottles and sealing machines. The rebottling work was going on at a large scale," Kujur. He said the work of rebottling was going on in a thatched house inside the Carriage Colony so that no one could suspect such illegal activity there.
The Excise Department of the East Singhbhum district has also formed Quick Response Team (QRT) of respective police stations to nail down illegal liquor joints flourishing in different parts of the city. As part of the initiative joint surprise raids would be carried out at liquor selling points in the evening while production points will see raids in the morning.