FOUR ARRESTED IN PATIALA RAIDS, 1,150 LITRE LAHAN RECOVERED

PATIALA:POLICE on Saturday conducted raids at various locations in Patiala district and arrested four persons wanted in connection with the hooch tragedy that claimed at least 84 lives in Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur besides recovering huge amounts of lahan (raw material to make liquor).

A team led by Patiala range inspector general of police (IGP) Jatinder Singh Aulakh and senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vikramjeet Singh Duggal conducted the raids at Rajpura’s Jhilmil Dhaba and Banur’s

Green Dhaba.

Those arrested are Prem Singh, owner of Azad Transport, his accomplice Bhinda, Green Dhaba owner Gurjant Singh and Jhilmil Dhaba manager Narender Singh. They were handed over to the Tarn Taran police.

Police seized 200 litre lahan from

Jhilmil Dhaba and 200 litre diesellike liquid from Green Dhaba.

Also, the police recovered 950 litre lahan from Rajpura and Ghanaur areas and registered five FIRS. “The names of the two eateries had also surfaced when an illicit distillery was unearthed at Ghanaur of Rajpura on May 14. The police then conducted raids at these premises but failed to make any recovery. Bhinda was wanted in the case and was on the run since then,” a police official privy to the probe said.

SSP Duggal said the arrests were made on the basis of inputs from Tarn Taran police. “The preliminary probe found that the raw material for making liquor was transported from these dhabas,” he said.

The Ghanaur illegal distillery busted on May 14 was using ethyl alcohol (ENA), which is used to make sanitiser. Amrik Singh, sarpanch of Khanpur Khurd, whose wife is a zila parishad member affiliated with the Congress, was among those arrested in the case.