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Banned liquor worth Rs 15 lakh seized from school in Bihar’s Champaran; four arrested
A police raid unearthed 249 cartons of Indian made foreign liquor, worth an estimated Rs 15 lakh, from a private school in Narkatiaganj sub-division in West Champaran district of north Bihar, on Friday.
Liquor stock worth about Rs 15 lakh was recovered from the premises of a private school in Narkatiaganj sub-division in West Champaran district of north Bihar, making it the biggest seizure from an educational institution in the ‘dry’ state.
A West Champaran police raiding party, led by deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Aman Kumar found 249 cartons of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL), on the premises of OVS International School, at Banswaria village in Parautola panchayat, about 18 km south of Narkatiaganj town and 280 km north-west of state capital, Patna.
The police have arrested four persons and seized a Haryana number plate truck, a Mahindra Scorpio MUVs, two Mahindra Bolero vehicles and a jeep, from the premises.
Earlier, 12 bottles of IMFL were found at a government primary school in south Bihar’s Gaya district, in March this year.
Consumption, sale or possession of alcohol attracts stringent punishment, including a jail term of up to 10 years, in Bihar, a state in which total prohibition is in force since April 5, 2016.
Confirming the seizure of the liquor cache and the four arrests, Narkatiaganj DSP Aman Kumar, said the raid on the school was conducted in the wake of a specific tip off received by West Champaran superintendent of police (SP) Vinay Kumar.
“The tip off suggested that a consignment of liquor would reach the Lauria police station limits, sometime during the day. Thereafter, police teams from Lauria, Yogapatti, Nawalpur, Sathi, Sanichri and other police stations, rushed to Banswaria and located the liquor consignment.
When the police team raided the school premises they found that the IMFL had been unloaded from the truck that had brought it and transferred to the school jeep, Boleros and the Scorpio. The liquor bottles were found concealed in bags of fodder.
The police seized the consignment and arrested liquor trader Birendra Gupta (Nawalpur), truck driver Ajmor Sekhwat (Jhajhar, Haryana), cleaner Ajay (Rohtak) and school guard Saheb Ram, from the spot.
During interrogation, they confessed that the consignment had been sourced by Rakesh Pandey, a former sarpanch and owner of the school. As provided for under the prevailing laws, the police would initiate the process of confiscation of the school building and the vehicles.
The DSP said the school owner was on the run and efforts were on to trace him. He would be booked under the provisions of the Bihar prohibition and excise act, 2016, which prescribes a jail term up to 10 years for liquor-related offences.
Just hours earlier, the police recovered 7,200 bottles (3211 litres) of liquor from a truck coming from Uttar Pradesh, after it was stopped in the Kuchaikot police station area of Gopalganj district of north western Bihar, Gopalganj SP Ravi ranjan Kumar confirmed.
The truck driver, Tarun Vijay, managed to escape from the spot but its cleaner, Sukhvinder Singh of Jalandhar in Punjab, was caught by the police.
