Jaipur spirit seizure linked to Ahmedabad tragedy

JAIPUR: Police in Jaipur said on Friday that the spirit seized at Jawahar Circle area on July 25 may have been smuggled from the same source which supplied spurious hooch-makers in Ahmedabad. The Gujarat tragedy had claimed over 132 lives in the first week of July.

The cops say that the spirit seized from Jaipur had been procured from the Kashyap Organic Pvt Ltd at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. It was being smuggled to some places near Jodhpur. On Friday, a Jaipur city court issued a search warrant for the factory after excise department sleuths reportedly failed to interrogate company officials even with the help of Ghaziabad police.

The spirit seized contains methyl alcohol which was also found in the hooch in Ahmedabad. The police found a transport receipt in the truck which was smuggling it into Rajasthan. The receipt shows that the truck had transported potatoes to Ahmedabad in June, a few days before the liquor tragedy. Interestingly, 60 drums of spirit seized from Jaipur on July 25 were hidden in sacks of potatoes.

Excise department had seized a truck containing 12,000 litres of spirit which was to be used to brew liquor. The police had arrested two persons, identified as Kalu and Rinku, both residents of Ludhiana in Punjab. The spirit was enough to make 6,000 crates of foreign liquor.

"Kalu and Rinku confessed that they had got the spirit from the Ghaziabad-based Kashyap Organic Pvt Ltd," said deputy police superintendent (excise) Rajeev Dutta.

In the Ahmedabad hooch tragedy, one of the accused ----Jagdish Thakkar---- used to get methyl alcohol at a petrol pump near Ahmedabad from chemical tankers coming from factories of various places, including Ghaziabad. Ahmedabad police suspect that some tanker drivers at the chemical factories were also involved. A driver has been identified, but he is absconding.

"We received a transport receipt which shows that the potatoes were carried in the same manner to Ahmedabad by the same truck in June. A local court has issued the search warrant against the Ghaziabad-based chemical factory and a team is being sent for further investigation," said Dutta.

What has worries jaipur police is the fact that just 3,000 litres of spirit was used to prepare liquor involved in Ahemdabad hooch tragedy. Kalu and Rinku who were arrested on July 25 were trying to smuggle four times as much spirit containing methyl alcohol. This is a huge quantity. The police fear that after the outcry in Gujarat following the tragedy, the liquor smugglers' focus might have shifted to Rajasthan.

Source: timesofindia