Illicit liquor manufacturing unit in Patiala: Two main accused now in police net

PATIALA: Almost a month after the district police busted an illicit liquor manufacturing unit in Gandian village near Shambhu, two more accused in the case have finally landed with the district police.
While one of the accused Amrik Singh, son of Mewa Singh surrendered before the cops at Shambhu police station, Hardeep Singh alias Bacchi s/o Gurmail Singh arrested from Banur-Shumbu road near Tepla village.
Following the allegations that hefty ammount of money was being paid to certain officials of the excise department to overlook the running of the illicit liquor manufacturing unit, the enforcement director has already started a probe into the matter.
The police department had on the intervening night of May 12 and 13 raided the illicit unit after receiving information from the Excise officials, who had busted the operations. It was being run from an abandoned cold store near Rajpura, which as previously owned by a BJP MLA from Rajpura.
The police had recovered a bottling-machinery, empty bottles, about 35 drums of extra neutral alcohol (ENA) along with holograms, labels of different brands, packaging material and one of the employees, Amit Kumar, at the unit was arrested.
The police had registered an FIR under Sections 420, 467, 471, 188, 269 of the IPC and Sections 61/1/14 of the Excise Act and Section 5 of the Disaster management act 2005 PS Shambhu police against Dipesh Kumar, Harpreet Singh, Amrik Singh, Bacchi along with Vijay Kumar who owned the cold storage and Amit Kumar.
On May 19, the cops had busted a storage facility at Pabri village owned by one Darshan Singh.
It later turned out that while Dipesh and Amrik were associated with the Congress party, Vijay was a close aide of a former BJP legislator from Rajpura and Darshan Singh had close links with the SAD.
When contacted Patiala SSP Mandip Singh Sidhu confirmed that while Amrik Singh has surrendered before the police, Bacchi was arrested by a team of police.