Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Inter-State spirit racket busted

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The inter-State illicit spirit movement investigation team has busted a spirit racket and arrested five persons.

Those arrested were Ramesh, Santhosh, Mahesh, Sheen and Sampath who reportedly had been bringing spirit to the State. So far, 35 persons have been arrested in this regard.

Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Director General of Police (DGP) Raman Srivastava, Deputy Inspector General (Crime Branch) Harinath Mishra and Palakkad Superintendent of Police Vijay Sakhare told reporters here on Thursday that the special team got a cue from the spirit seizure case at Walayar check-post recently. An Excise team had seized 8,540 litres of spirit from a cement lorry on January 8 this year.

The spirit barrels were hidden under cement bags. The brass token issued to Malabar Cements for routing its lorries through green channel was also seized from the lorry.

A case registered by the Excise Department had also been handed over to the police.

Mr. Srivastava had then deputed a special team headed by Mr. Sakhare to probe the case.

The 14-member team traced the source of the illicit spirit and arrested 35 persons. The police had succeeded in tracing the links and also detecting the routes through which spirit was being smuggled into the State. The racket had spread in all South Indian States and also Maharashtra, Goa and Madhya Pradesh, they said.

The team had also succeeded in arresting illicit spirit dealers Edison, Mujeeb Rehman and Jojo. Edison was an accused in the Avaneeswaram hooch tragedy case and was absconding. The team had seized six lorries and 35,000 litres of spirit, Mr. Srivastava said.

Good service entry and reward would be given to the team members. The special team has set a new model worth emulating by tracing the source as well as the links of the spirit mafia, Mr. Balakrishnan said. Political links of the accused would not be an impediment in taking action in such cases, Mr. Balakrishnan added.

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