Dagri held, reeks of killer conspiracy

The arrest of Vinod Chauhan alias Dagri — the main supplier of toxic liquor — on Friday, has prompted the police to investigate the possibility that the hooch tragedy was brewed by a sinister conspiracy. The police said that the arrest would help them solve the killer-hooch case soon.

“The way in which the toxic liquor was manufactured and distributed raise  serious concerns about a conspiracy,” said the director general of police, Gujarat, SS Khandwawala.

Talking to DNA, Khandwawala said that someone could have taken advantage of Dagri's willingness to manufacture low-cost country liquor. Or, Dagri could have willingly taken part in the conspiracy to manufacture the liquor.

The state police are currently working to determine if there was a plan to kill people in order to defame the state. “There are some leads which seem to suggest the tragedy was indeed the outcome of a conspiracy,” Khandwawala said. He, however, refused to disclose details of the investigation.

Khandwawala said that the Ahmedabad crime branch and a special investigation team headed by Ashish Bhatia, the inspector-general of police, law and order, had arrested three people including Dagri on the Bharuch-Vadodara highway.  Along with Dagri, the police have arrested Sunil More and Jagdish Thakkar. The two, both residents of Vadodara, had provided the dangerous additive methyl alcohol to Dagri. Thakkar owns a petrol pump and is infamous for illegally trading in chemicals.