The excise department busted an illicit liquor manufacturing unit by conducting a massive raid at a house at Barabanki village along the NH-33 under MGM police station area on Friday morning. The excise officials also arrested four persons and seized liquor, sealing machines, corks, and a van worth over `10 lakh.
Those arrested are the workers involved in sealing the Indian made foreign liquor (IMFl) bottles and they were identified as Bhola Singh, Subhas Das, Sunny Rajak, and Mahesh Kumar, all between the age-group of 25 to 30 years. The owner of the illicit liquor manufacturing unit was identified as Bablu Gupta, a resident Dhobi line in Sonari. Gupta has absconded.
Assistant commissioner, Excise, Arvind Kujur said that in the morning they got a tip off that a liquor manufacturing unit is running at Barabanki village close to the NH-33.
"We soon came into action and a raiding team led by Excise inspector Khitij Minz raided the place and arrested the four workers engaged in sealing the IMFl into various popular brand of liquor. The raiding team also seized the liquor along with hundreds of sealed liquor bottles which were ready to be despatched," said Kujur.
The assistant commissioner said that from the seized items they concluded that there must be another unit where the liquor is being prepared as at the Barabanki unit they got sealed containers of spirit.
Kujur said the operator of this illicit liquor manufacturing unit was not present at the spot, but after grilling the arrested persons they came to know known that Bablu Gupta was behind this illicit business.
"We have started conducting raids and a team of Excise officials conducted raids at Gupta’s house in Sonari, but he was found absconding," said the assistant commissioner.
Initial probe suggested that Gupta would supply the spurious IMFl bottles of the popular brand like Royal Stag, Officer’s Choice Blue to the road side hotels, interiors of Singhbhum and also in parts of the unauthorised liquor dens in the city.
The Excise officials are trying to find out the period of time since which the illicit liquor unit was running.
One of the arrested workers, Sunny said he was working at the unit since the past two months and was not aware about the supply line of this spurious liquor.
At Jamshedpur there are 98 Indian Make Foreign liquor (IMFl) licensed shops, 51 country-made liqour shop and 15 spicy liquor shops. Notably, the steel city has a history of manufacturing of duplicate liquor as the district police had in the past busted several rackets of duplicate liquor manufacturing units, especially from the localities like Bagbera, Jugsalai and Kadma.