A team of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) from Mumbai Central stumbled upon an inter-state liquor smuggling racket and arrested two persons
A team of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) from Mumbai Central stumbled upon an inter-state liquor smuggling racket and arrested two persons while checking passengers of Saurashtra Express on Sunday afternoon.
The RPF officials found six bottles of beer and 1,484 bottles of whiskey, each of 180ml, worth Rs34,600 being smuggled to Surat.
The police said Ram Pradhan and Shabbir (full name not known) had boarded the train with the consignment at Vapi.
They have been charged with smuggling liquor and carrying an inflammable material in a train. The RPF seized the bottles and handed over the two to the Valsad Government Reserve Police (GRP).
The team, acting on the instructions of senior divisional security commissioner DB Kasar, was led by inspector Gulab Singh. The RPF has increased security checks in trains after the Jaipur blasts.
“The liquor bottles were kept hidden below the seats in the unreserved compartment,” an RPF (Crime Branch) officer who was part of the team said requesting anonymity. “We found the two did not have licence for transporting the liquor consignment,” the officer said.
The officer said that two would have been arrested even if they had had the licence, since it was illegal to carry liquor in Gujarat, where alcohol is prohibited.
The RPF suspected the racket to be bigger, he said. The smugglers got liquor bottles from Daman for prices ranging from Rs20 to Rs30 each and sold them in Gujarat for double the price.
“The smugglers board the general compartments of mail or expresses trains from Vapi and deliver the consignments at the Surat railway station,” the officer said. This happened every day, he said.
v_narayan@dnaindia.net
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