Liquor bottles seized from coffin inside an ambulance in Bihar

Ever since alcohol was banned in the State from 2016, the illegal mafia has been finding novel ways to smuggle liquor into its borders

Bottles of illegal liquor wrapped properly in a white shroud, instead of a dead body, were found inside an ambulance on its way to Bihar’s Muzaffarpur from Jharkhand’s Ranchi. The State excise department officials, though, were not surprised by the collection of spirits inside a coffin as they earlier had received a tip-off of the liquor smuggling.

The excise officials on Monday seized as many as 212 IMFL (Indian-made foreign liquor) bottles, amounting to nearly 159 litres, from the ambulance near Dheerja bridge on the Bihar-Jharkhand border.

Two persons, driver Lalit Kumar Mahto of Ranchi and Pankaj Yadav of the Chatra district, in Jharkhand, were inside the ambulance. When the excise officials started searching the ambulance, they told them that a dead body was inside the coffin and even let the officials speak to the grieving family members. They also produced a death certificate to the excise officials, but the date of the death written on the certificate was mismatched.

On the same day on March 27, a huge consignment of liquor bottles worth lakhs of rupees was seized from inside a septic tank in the Saharsa district, while a day after, hundreds of liquor bottles were recovered from a graveyard in the Vaishali district. Every day, smugglers of illegal liquor in dry Bihar dig out new ways to ferry bottles into the State.

The State excise department has made three checkposts in the bordering district of Gaya to check the illegal ferrying of liquor bottles.

“It was on a tip-off we intercepted the ambulance coming from Jharkhand side at Dheerja bridge check post and seized 212 liquor bottles, instead of a dead body, from a coffin wrapped in a shroud and placed on the back seat of the ambulance”, said Prem Prakash, Gaya assistant commissioner (excise department).

“The coffin was wrapped in white shroud in such a way that it looked as a dead body inside at first sight”, he added.

On the same day, the excise department officials seized IMFL liquor bottles worth ₹5 lakh from a septic tank in Saharsa district. “It was such a big septic tank in which a truck full of cartons of liquor bottle was emptied”, said an excise department official. The very next day on March 28, on a tip-off, the police in Vaishali district, seized 92 cartons of illegal liquor worth of Rs 10 lakh from Ramouli graveyard under Patepur police station in the district. The liquor cartons were concealed in a container.

Earlier, illicit liquor bottles were seized in Bihar from LPG cylinders, truck tyres, pick-up vans stacked with potatoes and onions, train pantry cars and through every possible way the smugglers could think of. Of late, the police and excise department officials conducting raids at liquor smugglers’ hideouts were even attacked and beaten up by smugglers. Hundreds of policemen and excise department officials have got suspended for hobnobbing with liquor smugglers. A police inspector in Muzaffarpur district was earlier put under suspension after seized liquor bottles were found on sale from his police station itself.

Ever since liquor was banned in the State under stringent provisions of the new Bihar Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Act. 2016, a total of 5,63,000 cases were registered and 7,49,000 people were arrested till February 2023. However, the conviction rate in these cases has been a mere 21.98%, for lack of evidence and a huge pile of pending cases in courts. The government, though, claimed that it has made 74 special courts (excise) functional for the fast disposal of prohibition-related cases.

Recently, State excise minister Sunil Kumar said in the State Assembly that 1.54 crore litres of illegal IMFL and 96.71 lakh litres of country-made (desi) liquor have been seized since April 5, 2016.

“From regular raids, use of drones, breath analysers and setting up more checkposts with hand-held scanners, policemen and excise department officials at the inter-state borders have taken several steps to implement the provisions of liquor laws in the State. A total of 1,040 breath analysers are used to detect people consuming illegal liquor in the dry State”, the minister added.