Hooch racket linked to Gujarat, Rajasthan

Alleged main supplier Atiq sent to police custody till July 3

In this June 19, 2015 photo, a boy looks at the house where illicit liquor was made at Malvani in Mumbai.

With the >arrest of Mansoor Latif Khan alias Atiq , the alleged main supplier in the recent Mumbai hooch tragedy, investigators are probing the links of the racket to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Rajasthan and other States.

“As per the material on record, there is a chain of business, [supplying] contaminated and poisonous liquor, in States such as Gujarat and Rajasthan. This is an interstate chain,” public prosecutor Kiran Bendbhar told a magistrate’s court on Wednesday.

Atiq, who was arrested in Delhi on Tuesday, was brought to Mumbai on a transit remand. He was produced before a magistrate’s court here on Wednesday and sent to police custody till July 3.

He allegedly provided the chemical ingredients, which were procured from Gujarat and brought to Mumbai. A team of the Mumbai Crime Branch has gone to Gujarat.

“The source where Atiq got the spurious liquor or methanol from is yet to be established,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) Dhananjay Kulkarni told The Hindu .

He was in possession of some stock of the chemical, the court was told.

Atiq, whose name came up during interrogation of the other accused, is the eighth to be arrested in the case.