Rajkot: A total of 12,860 bottles of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth Rs 46.20 lakh were seized and three persons arrested in three different raids conducted in Thangadh and Limbdi of Surendranagar district, and in Kutiyana taluka of Porbandar district on Sunday night.
On Tarnetar Road in Thangadh, the share of IMFL bottles was being divided in a farm when the cops raided the spot. They seized 6,624 IMFL bottles worth Rs 27.79 lakh, three SUVs and one truck. The cops arrested the farm owner, Dilip Kathi, and his staffer Jema Khamani.
“During interrogation, Kathi said that the liquor consignment had come from Rajasthan. There were six bootleggers who fled from the spot before the raid,” said V R Jadeja, sub-inspector with Thangadh police station.
In Limbdi, a total of 1,196 IMFL bottles and 2,396 beer cans, total worth Rs 5,88 lakh were seized and a bootlegger arrested. The police said that the liquor supply was being ferried in a truck about which they had received a tip-off.
“The IMFL bottles were hidden beneath the piles of bricks. The driver, Parth Goswami, said that the liquor supply was loaded by Sunil Mishra in Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh and that the supply was supposed to be delivered to Nandubha Parmar in Navaniya village of Sayla taluka in Surendranagar district,” said D M Dhol, inspector with Surendranagar local crime branch.
In Kutiyana, a total of 5,040 IMFL bottles worth Rs 12.53 lakh were seized from an abandoned truck. “We received a tip-off that the bootleggers had fled after abandoning their truck on Rajkot-Porbandar Highway near Kutiyana, following which we raided the spot and effected the seizure,” said an official from Kutiyana police station.