Another illicit Liquor Manufacturing unit busted in Patiala; three held

— Police have seized one SUV Fortuner Car, one Bottling machine, 1600 empty bottles, 6500 bottle caps, 41000 bottle labels, flavours etc.

— Operation came less than week after Jalandhar Rural Police busted a similar illicit Liquor unit in Adampur

— Four more names nominated in Jalandhar’s illicit liquor manufacturing unit case

CHANDIGARH/PATIALA, June 22:

    In yet another major blow to illicit liquor manufacturing and supply, the Punjab Police on Tuesday has busted another illegal liquor manufacturing unit in the State with the arrest of three persons from Shagun Vihar area in Patiala.

    Those arrested have been identified as Salwinder Singh alias Shinda, a resident of village Bufanpura of Patiala, Hardeep Kumar alias Deepu of Urban Estate Patiala and Sunil Kumar of Safabadi Gate, Patiala.

    This is the second such illegal Liquor manufacturing unit busted by the Punjab Police in less than a week. Notably, the Jalandhar Rural Police, in a joint operation with the State Excise department on June 16, 2021, had unearthed an illegal liquor factory in village Dhogri in Adampur and arrested four persons after unearthing a bottling unit, alongwith a sealing machine, six head filling Machine, 11,990 empty bottles (750 ml), 3840 cardboard boxes, storage tanks etc from their possession.

    Naveen Singla, SSP Jalandhar Rural, said that since the accused were putting the lives of people at risk by manufacturing adulterated liquor laced with poisonous chemicals, the Jalandhar Rural police have also added section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) alongwith sections 420, 120-B, 353, 186 of the IPC and sections 20, 61(A), 68 of the Excise Act in the FIR registered at Police Station Adampur, Jalandhar.

    The Jalandhar Rural police had arrested Jasvir Singh alias Billa of Ropar, Nikhil alias Thappa of Basti Danishmanda Jalandhar, Sachin Kumar of Maya Garden Zirakpur and Raj Kumar alias Raju of village Kubran Mohali, while Rajan Angural, Sunny Angural, Sheetal Angural and Amit Taneja, all residents of Jalandhar have also been nominated in the FIR.

    DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta, while divulging details about the intelligence led special operation in Patiala, said that the Police teams under the supervision of SSP Sandeep Garg, unearthed the illegal liquor manufacturing unit in the area of Shagun Vihar in Patiala yesterday.

    He said that the Police has arrested three culprits of the interstate bootleggers gang, which is spread across states including Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar, while the manhunt for arresting remaining two accused persons has been launched. Efforts are being made to arrest Atinder Pal of Patiala and Vishal, a native of Bihar, who were actively involved in this case, he added.

    DIG Patiala Vikram Jeet Duggal said that Shinda and Deepu had been into the illegal liquor business from last 5 to 6 years and with the help of Vishal, who was privy to the place in Delhi from where machinery and raw material could be procured, had set-up a illegal liquor manufacturing unit.

    He said that initially the gang had set-up the unit at Ekta Vihar in Patiala in May 2020, but they shifted their unit to the residence of Atinder Pal in Ghanaur after their neighbours got suspicious of their activities.

    “They also shifted their second unit from Ghanaur to its current location Shagun Vihar and had been running this unit for sometime,” said DIG Patiala Vikram Jeet Duggal, adding that the gang could have manufactured around 1000 to1100 liquor cases (one case=12 bottles) from these three units.

    He said that the gang was trying to procure extra neutral alcohol (ENA) to expand their illegal business.

    SSP Patiala Sandeep Garg said that the Police had seized one Fortuner car (PB11CN8978), one one Bottling Machine, 41000 bottle labels (with mark Orange Tango Spicy Desi Liquor for sale in Chandigarh UT only), 16000 empty plastic bottles, 850 packing cardboard boxes,  two black plastic tanks, 6500 bottle caps without label, 3500 bottle caps (with label RS rock and Storm bottles private Chandigarh), 4-litre orange flavour, 38-litre red flavour, one dispenser machine used to seal the bottles, one rap machine used to label the bottles, 7000 bottle cap seals, 14 gum plastic bottles, 96 piece cello tapes and one Electric Water Pump.

    He said that the preliminary investigations had revealed that Vishal who’s an expert in making liquor flavours had helped the gang in procuring 11 small drums of ENA besides the packing material like tango marked label from Delhi and bottles from Baddi.

    Meanwhile, FIR no. 119 dated June 21, 2021, has been registered under sections 420, 465, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 61(1)A, 61(1)C, 63A, 24-1-14 of the Excise Act at Police Station Urban Estate Patiala. Further investigations are in progress.