Women arrested for ferrying booze to dry city of Nagpur

The Nagpur division of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has seized two separate consignments of liquor bottles which were carried illegally to the dry city of Nagpur on a long-distance train. The RPF officials have intercepted a total consignment of more than 2,000 bottles of countrymade liquor which were smuggled by female passengers in cloth bags.

In the first incident, RPF officials from Nagpur conducted raids on the Jaipur Express train after receiving a tip-off. They found three female passengers smuggling liquor in plastic bottles, which were kept in four cloth bags.

“We seized at least 500 liquor bottles worth Rs13,000 from two female passengers seated in a general coach of Jaipur Express train. We checked their bags as we found them suspicious. We seized the bottles after the train reached Nagpur station at 2.30pm on Tuesday,” said a senior RPF official.

The seized bottles were country-made liquor named ‘Rocket’ which were purchased from Jaipur.

The officials said that female passengers usually smuggle liquor bottles as they are not checked during the regular drives in trains. The other modus operandi used by female passengers includes them posing as saree saleswomen. “The female passengers hide their consignments of liquor bottles in between heaps of sarees,” said the official. The passengers were identified as Sunita Premdas Methe (40) and Haritika Kailash Mishra (25). Both are residents of Balharshah.

In the second incident, the RPF officials of Wardha district of Nagpur seized 1,765 bottles worth Rs47,990 from three female passengers who were residents of Wardha. The passengers were carrying their consignment in 11 bags.

The female passengers were identified as Kiran Jadhav (27), Radha Bhadra (40) and Kamla Rajkumar (38). The Government Railway Police arrested the three accused.

The accused were arrested by excise department officials under section 65A of Bombay Prohibition Act for importing or exporting intoxicant