The Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB), in association with Police and Prohibition and Excise (P&E) personnel arrested 22 employees of various departments for their alleged involvement in sand, liquor and ganja smuggling in the State.
The SEB Assistant Superintendents of Police (ASPs), the district and excise police conducted raids at various check-posts, and conducted vehicle checkings and seized huge quantity of liquor. They arrested 22 employees working in the police, panchayat raj, banks, CISF, AP Transco and other departments for allegedly transporting liquor illegally.
With Director-General of Police and SEB Ex-officio Principal Secretary D. Gautam Sawang directing the officers to act tough against the smugglers and take steps to prevent illegal transportation of liquor, ganja and sand and arrack brewing, the accused were arrested and produced in the court, said SEB Commissioner and Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vineet Brijlal.
“We wrote to the departments concerned to take disciplinary action against the arrested staff. Arrests were made in Guntur, Chittoor, Nellore, Krishna, Anantapur, West Godavari, Kurnool and other districts,” the SEB Commissioner told The Hindu on Saturday.
The employees were caught allegedly smuggling liquor and ganja, abetting illegal transportation of sand through bikes, four-wheelers and autos, Mr. Brijlal said.
The Government issued GO.41 creating SEB on May 15, and appointed ASPs for all districts and allotted 70% of staff from P&E for effective functioning of the bureau.
“The cooperation from the SP and other district officers is good. We conducted raids on State borders and destroyed arrack and jaggery wash during raids in villages. More raids will be conducted to control ID liquor and smuggling of sand, ganja and IMFL,” said Krishna district SEB ASP Vakul Jindal.
