Lucknow remains transit point for liquor smugglers

LUCKNOW:The Lucknow police on Monday arrested two members of an interstate liquor smuggling gang and seized a consignment of 275 litres of alcohol worth ₹ 2.5 lakh from an area under the Sarojini Nagar police station limits here.

According to police records, this is the seventh major smuggled liquor consignment seized in the state capital in the past six months. Despite frequent police action, officials said that liquor smugglers of Haryana were still using the roads connecting Delhi to Lucknow as their main transit route.

“In the past few months, seizure of four large consignments of illegal liquor on the same route in Lucknow clearly shows that the state capital is a new transit point for the smugglers of Haryana. They opt for the Delhi-Lucknow route due to its good connectivity. From here, it is supplied to various districts of Uttar Pradesh and the adjoining state of Bihar,” said a senior official privy to the investigation.

Sharing details about Monday’s seizure, circle officer Amit Kumar Rai said, “Those arrested were identified as Haryana residents Jitendra Kumar Jat and Sandip Nayak. The duo was carrying 783 liquor bottles that were kept in an SUV.”“The men were bringing the consignment from Haryana. It had to be supplied to different districts in Bihar, where liquor was banned three years ago,” said Rai.

RECENT ACTION

This is the first big smuggled liquor consignment seized by the Sarojini Nagar police. Nearby stations have also seized such consignments in the past.

On September 24, the STF of the UP police raided a workshop that was being used for repackaging smuggled liquor in Gosaiganj area and arrested six people. An official privy to the probe said that three consignments of smuggled liquor were seized from areas under the Kakori police.