2-lakh kg of illicit liquor seized, five arrested along Himachal border
CHANDIGARH: The Ropar police on Friday arrested five people and seized what it called the “biggestever” quantity of material for illicit liquor in a 10-hour operation in forested terrain in Himachal Pradesh villages. The operation was carried out in collaboration with the Bilaspur police.
Seven working stills (apparatus used for the distillation of liquids) and 2-lakh kg of ‘lahan’ (from which illicit liquor is distilled after fermentation) were seized from Majir and Dabt villages on the Punjab-Himachal border in Bilaspur district.
Due to dense forest, the area is notorious for smuggling of illegal liquor for the past many decades.
The police had to cut through dense and thorny undergrowth to get to the spot, said Ropar senior superintendent of police Swapan Sharma.
The teams cordoned off the entire area around the villages, located about two km from the Punjab border, said the SSP, adding the search operation covered a six-km stretch along the interstate border.
Investigations were in progress to trace further links of the accused across Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, Sharma said.
The seizure came amid statewide efforts by Punjab Police, under the directives of chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, to check illicit liquor trading, as well as smuggling of liquor from across the state’s borders.
The smugglers take advantage of the forest cover and the lack of access in the tough terrain to sneak from Himachal Pradesh into Punjab with their hauls.
In the last five years, 26 cases in Punjab and 38 cases in Himachal Pradesh have been registered against people hailing from these areas.