With the arrest of five persons, the Noida Police busted an illegal liquor manufacturing unit in Ghaziabad’s Tronica City on Wednesday. Three policemen in Ghaziabad have been suspended for negligence.
The arrested men have been identified as property dealer Prem Singhal, who rented out the plot, and workers Naveen, Vishal, Luv Kush and Bose Kumar. The factory was being run by Amit alias Bhoora, who had a bounty of ₹10 lakh on his head and is currently lodged in Patiala jail, said Gautam Budh Nagar SSP Ajay Pal Sharma.
He said the police was informed that illicit liquor was being supplied to Noida from nearby districts. The police launched a two-day drive, ‘Operation Yellow Water’, in the district. They arrested many bootleggers, including Lokesh, as part of the drive.
Lokesh, who was arrested early on Wednesday with six cartons of illicit liquor, revealed during interrogation that he bought the liquor from a godown in Tronica City.
Following this, the Noida police raided the factory, operating from a two-storey building, and seized around 15,000 litres of illicit liquor.
After the raid, Ghaziabad Senior SSP Vaibhav Krishna suspended a Station House Officer, a police post incharge and a beat constable at Tronica City police station for alleged dereliction of duty.
“Based on Lokesh’s information, the Noida police raided the godown and found a full-fledged liquor factory being run there stealthily,” a senior police officer said.
Besides 15,000 litres of alcohol, the police also seized ethyl alcohol, a chemical stashed in 200 drums of 100-litre capacity each, empty bottles, wrappers, sealing machines and three tanks of 5,000-litre capacity each filled with liquor. A truck loaded with 600 cartons of liquor was also seized, the police said.
Similar incident
The Noida police claimed to have arrested two more bootleggers on Wednesday from Sector 49 police station area for smuggling liquor from Haryana. The accused have been identified as Jaidev and Pramod. The police seized 37 cartons of countrymade liquor and 20 cartons of foreign liquor from the accused.
Four men had died in Khoda Colony on March 13after drinking spurious. They had bought the liquor from a woman, who sold alcohol at her house in Shankar Vihar.
