Noida (UP), Oct 25 (PTI) A 54-year-old man has been arrested from Chandigarh by the Noida Police, which is probing an illegal liquor factory case of Ghaziabad, officials said Thursday.
Ajay Grover was arrested from his house in Modern Housing Complex in Chandigarh Wednesday for masterminding the illegal factory, which was being operated by the brother of jailed gangster Amit Malik alias Bhoora, police said.
In an inter-district operation, the Noida Police had on September 26 busted the illegal factory running under the guise of "a juice manufacturer" in Ghaziabad's Tronica City area and seized a record 15,000 litre of illicit liquor, estimated to be worth Rs 50 lakh.
Half-a-dozen workers of the factory were arrested in the raid by a team from Noida's Sector 24 police station, which on October 15 arrested one more key man, Bobby Tomar alias Langda, who was absconding since September 26, police said.
Grover, who is an MBA in Marketing, post graduate in chemistry and has an LLb degree from the Shimla University, has worked as an industrial consultant. He has previously dabbled in running a hospital in partnership, but the venture ended in 2013 due to monetary dispute among stakeholders, police said.
He told police he had some land in Ponga Sahib, Himachal Pradesh on which a liquor factory was operating. Once during a raid on the factory by police, he was also arrested because of his ownership of the land, officials said.
"Every time I visited the factory, I would keenly observe the process of making liquor and all equipments being used. Being an M.Sc in Chemistry and a gold medallist in that, it was not difficult for me to understand the process," he told police according to his statement.
Grover said he met Amit alias Bhoora when he was shifted to the Patiala jail in January this year and it was there that the two decided to start this liquor business in Uttar Pradesh where his brother Vinit Malik could help them, according to police.
Grover got bail in May and he met Malik in June at a hotel in Delhi, where Malik told him that he had earmarked some space in Tronica City of Ghaziabad where they can start work on the production of liquor and label the company as a fruit manufacturer.
He said they had hired a manager and five workers for filling bottles and packaging the liquor which would then be supplied through a truck to various places in Uttar Pradesh, NCR, and Himachal Pradesh.
The police said tracked his movement and based on a specific input, the sleuths held him from his house in Chandigarh's Mani Majra area.
Grover has been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. He has also been booked under the provisions of the Excise Act, they said.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)