Excise and Taxation team seizes 6000 litres of ENA : Harpal Singh Cheema

3156 FIRs registered against people involved in illegal liquor trade in last 5 months

Says, crusade against liquor/ alcohol smuggling will be accelerated further

Chandigarh: Punjab Finance, Planning, Excise and Taxation Minister Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema on Thursday told that in a joint operation carried out on September 13 by a team of officers of both the wings of the Excise and Taxation department, seized 6000 litres of Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA) stored in 30 plastic drums from a truck bearing registration number PB13-BF-0545 from Rajpura.

Disclosing this in a press statement issued here, Excise and Taxation Minister said that the driver of the vehicle was arrested on the spot and after preliminary investigation, it was revealed by the driver that the consignment was meant for delivery to crackers godown at Dhuri district Sangrur. “Subsequently raids were conducted at the said godown and two more persons were arrested who were part of this nexus. Further investigations are underway”, said Harpal Singh Cheema while adding that this is a major catch of ENA in recent past where-in ENA was being smuggled into the state of Punjab from Haryana.

The timely action of the Excise and Taxation teams have prevented a major possible tragedy as the ENA smuggling and consumption often leads to hooch tragedies .He said that in this case FIR no. 285 dated 13.09.2023 has been registered under section 61.01.14 and 78(2) of the Punjab Excise Act, 1914 at police station Rajpura.

Revealing the action taken by the Excise and Taxation department to tighten noose around the liquour smuggling, Harpal Singh Cheema said that Excise department has been vigorously continuing its tirade against the smuggling of liquor/ENA and other liquor related illegal activities which has resulted into registration of about 3156 FIRs in last 5 months since April 1, 2023. In these FIRs, 3050 arrests have been made, 248938 litres of illicit liquor detected, 151891 litres of lahan recovered and destroyed, 90168 litres of PML/IMFL/Beer/Spirit have been seized, 125 working stills (bhattis) have been detected and destroyed.

Cheema said that the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann led Punjab Government has zero tolerance policy as far as smuggling of liquor is concerned . He said that he has directed the Finance Commissioner Taxation Vikas Partap and Excise Commissioner Varun Roojam to further accelerate this crusade against liquor/ alcohol smuggling in future and nobody involved in liquor smuggling would be spared.