A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted to probe the seizure of nearly 10,000 litres of spirit from the Ernakulam rural police limits in three separate incidents in less than a week and establish whether they were all linked.
K. Karthik, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural), constituted the SIT headed by an Additional Superintendent of Police after the third seizure of over 6,000 litres of coloured spirit from a godown near Bank Junction at Aluva on Thursday morning. This was just hours after the Chottanikkara police seized over 2,500 litres of spirit from a house on Wednesday night.
In both cases, the spirit was reportedly brought in under the guise of making hand sanitisers. The two incidents were preceded by the seizure of another 100 litres by the Kalady police on April 26.
“We have to investigate whether all the three incidents were linked since the cans seized at Chottanikkara and Aluva had similar labels of a Goa-based distillery. Whether the consignment was smuggled in taking advantage of the clearance given to movement of medical and essential items during the lockdown or even before the lockdown also remains to be probed. The spirit was found to have 70% alcohol content and could have been easily diverted as illicit liquor,” said Mr. Karthik.
The Chottanikkara police arrested two persons — Manoj Kumar, 37, the house owner, and Abdul Salam, 34, of Aluva — who reportedly admitted to transporting spirit to the house from the Aluva godown. The police suspect that the spirit seized from Chottanikkara and Kalady was part of the same consignment seized from Aluva. “When the Kalady police made the first seizure, the accused were probably scared that the original consignment would be tracked down and hurriedly diverted a part of it to Chottanikkara. The house owner was made to store it just for two days for a hefty fee of ₹50,000,” said police sources.
Three separate cases invoking relevant sections of the Kerala Abkari Act have been registered.
Meanwhile, sources in the Drugs Control Department said hand sanitisers could be manufactured and sold only by those with licences issued by the department of the State concerned.
“These licences are issued against approved formulas and in almost all cases in Kerala, it involved Isopropyl alcohol. If the lab results show that the seized item was ethyl alcohol, then probably it was meant for misuse,” a senior official of the department said.
