Liquor seized from ashram

BHUBANESWAR: Excise sleuths seized 100 litres of spurious country liquor and 20 litres of rectified spirit from an ashram at Khandagiri here on Tuesday. 

On a tip off, the Excise team, led by Jagdish Chandra Samal, raided the ashram of Baba Bichitrananda Das Saraswati Maharaj alias Chhotu baba. 

Samal said three persons Ram Bali Yadav, Swadhin Sundaray and Sugriv Yadav, have been arrested. They are from Bihar and were living in the ashram on rent.

The Election Commission has deployed 147 Excise teams to crack down on illegal liquor smuggling across the State during polls. Their teams have seized around 500 gram brown sugar and 1.6 quintal cannabis so far this month. Over 50,300 litres liquor estimated at around `1.4 crore was also seized, he said.

The squads of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh are conducting joint raids on the border areas.