Early on Monday morning, an accident that occurred in Bhandup after the driver of an Indigo car dozed off and ran over a 67-year-old man, unravelled a hooch smuggling racket. The Bhandup police have initiated investigations into the racket, believed to have been active from Sion Koliwada to Bhiwandi.
According to the police, the Indigo, travelling from Thane towards Mumbai, ran over Thakursingh Rawat on LBS Road around 5:30 am. Rawat, a milk delivery man, was on his way to his employer’s collection centre to turn over the day’s earnings.
Passenger escapes
“The car hit Rawat and then rammed a flower shop on the roadside. Eyewitnesses told us that a man jumped out of the rear passenger seat and ran away immediately after the car stopped.
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The driver, however, could not exit as he was hurt and trapped inside. The driver was taken for a medical check-up, while the car was towed to the police station,” said senior police inspector Shripad Kale, Bhandup police station.
As part of the procedure, the car was searched before it could be sealed as evidence.
Hooch in tubes
When the police opened the trunk, they found five tyre tubes stacked. The tubes were examined and were found to have contained a total of 1,040 litres of hooch.
The driver of the car, later identified as Arumugam Mudaliar (52), was taken into custody after being administered medical aid, and questioned.
“The driver has told us that he was ferrying the hooch from Bhiwandi to Sion Koliwada for a man known to him as ‘Shetty bhai ’. This man was in the car when the accident occurred and fled immediately afterwards. He is believed to be a major figure in the racket and regularly transports hooch from Bhiwandi to Sion Koliwada, where it is sold. We are verifying the specifics of the operation. The accused was hired as a replacement for Shetty’s regular driver, who was unable to transport the hooch on Monday,” Mr Kale said.
Based on preliminary inquiries, the police believe that the hooch was ferried from Bhiwandi to Sion Koliwada once a week, and that the racket has been active for at least a year. Teams of policemen are making inquiries in Sion Koliwada to locate the hooch dens and to apprehend the mastermind of the racket.
A major concern
The sale of hooch — spurious liquor brewed in unhygienic settings — has been a concern for the police since 2005, when more than 210 people in Mumbai died after consuming it.
Ten years later, over 100 residents of Malwani died after drinking hooch sold in the area. Investigations had revealed that the hooch did not even have any liquor component in it, and that the racketeers were simply serving diluted methanol in the name of liquor.