Gujarat's Liquor Problem (img: Pexels, PNGTree)

Gujarat’s liquor nexus has once again come to light as several liquor rinks were intercepted and brought down by the authorities in a span of a few weeks, as New Year’s eve closes in.

Recently, Ahmedabad Rural’s local crime branch (LCB) confiscated foreign liquor worth ₹48 lakh on Dec 14 evening from a gas tanker en route to Rajkot on the Bagodara highway.

The LCB team had received information about this tanker carrying liquor instead of gas. Following this, they stopped a suspicious tanker on the highway and detained its driver and cleaner, identified as Kavalram and Balaram Jat, respectively.

The duo had mentioned travelling more than 1,250 km from Punjab to Rajkot to fill gas in their tanker. Upon searching their tanker, they landed on the massive liquor consignment of more than 21,000 bottles.

Punjab to Gujarat liquor route

As per police interrogation, Kavalram mentioned meeting an individual named Jaideepsinh from Rajasthan’s Barmer.

He was involved in a liquor smuggling rink with his associate, Anil Pandya.

Kavalram was tasked with taking liquor-laden tankers from Punjab’s Patiala to Gujarat and handing them over to a local operative of theirs in Gujarat’s Sayla.

The operative would then empty the liquor from the tanker and hand it back to them. Kavalram would get ₹50,000 for doing this job.

As per the police, he had already made two such hauls of the liquor consignment from Punjab to Gujarat.

Following the accused’s interrogation, police mentioned the possibility of top bootleggers’ identities surfacing in this case.

Growing liquor menace in and around Gujarat

Despite heavy surveillance by the authorities, the perpetrators have been using several new transport vehicles, like acid tankers, gas tankers, containers, etc, to penetrate the state with illicit liquor.

Liquor packages worth more than ₹2 cr have been nabbed from Ahmedabad rural’s Bagodara and Vivekananda Nagar areas in the last two weeks.

In a similar modus operandi as the Bagodara highway case, one such consignment was caught on the Vadodara express highway in a gas tanker.

Another such package near Bagodara, amounting to ₹25 lakh, was caught in an acid tanker by the Prevention of Crime Branch (PCB) team.

A report was submitted to the Director General of Police (DGP) office about these seizures, following which the authorities were instructed to inspect all the gas and acid tankers and containers before they entered the state.

Chandkheda liquor rink busted

Another liquor nexus was nabbed by police from Ahmedabad’s Chandkheda area, where three men, Rajesh and Vipul Solanki, and Harsh Jaiswal, had conspired to run a liquor business in the city.

They were caught while receiving a liquor consignment on Dec 15 morning from a car near Rajesh and Vipul’s apartment in Chandkheda’s Bhavani Nagar. The driver absconded from the scene, but the trio was caught with a total consignment of foreign liquor worth ₹1.75 lakh, along with ₹3.28 lakh in cash.

Further police investigation revealed that the rented apartment belonged to Rajesh’s elder brother Ghanshyam, and Rajesh planned on running a liquor business along with his friend Vipul. Jaiswal had reached there to unload this consignment from the car.

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