Six people were arrested for allegedly smuggling rectified spirit, used to make hooch, in the Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh on Monday, 11 February, Hindustan Times reported.
Three tankers containing over 75,000 litres of rectified spirit were seized from the gang. An SUV and containers used to smuggle the spirit were also recovered.
“The gang members were bringing the spirit from Bhatinda district in Punjab. They were intercepted by our team following an intelligence input and are being interrogated,” SSP STF Abhishek Singh told Hindustan Times.
“The gang smuggled rectified spirit in UP from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi and sold it to smaller gangs operating mostly in rural pockets,” he added.
The accused have been charged under relevant sections of the Excise Act and an FIR has been registered against them.
According to HT, the accused have been identified as Rajesh Jaiswal, Nitin Kumar and Ram Narayan Mishra of Sultanpur district, Harchandra Singh of Kolkata, Giridhari Yadav of Jharkhand and Bharose Pandit of Motihari, Bihar. They have been sent to judicial custody after being presented in the local court.
“We are also trying to identify the local gangs involved in the distribution of spirit in rural pockets,” Singh told HT.
The arrests come hours after deaths that have occurred due to consumption of illicit liquor in Uttarakhand and Uttarr Pradesh. The death toll in the hooch tragedy has risen to 99, with 59 people dead in Saharanpur, 10 in Kushinagar and 30 in Haridwar. Hundreds of others are in hospital after consuming the illicit liquor.
The main accused, Sardar Hardev, and his son, Sukka, have been arrested by the Haridwar police in Jhabrera.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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