Liquor baron, associates arrested

Bhagalpur: Bhagalpur police on Thursday evening arrested a liquor baron and his associates and recovered a huge consignment of liquor.

According to Bhagalpur superintendent of police (SSP) Ashish Bharati, acting on a tip-off, Jagdishpur police detained two cars with 553 bottles of illegal liquor near Sonhaula More on the Bhagalpur-Dumka state highway. They also nabbed liquor smuggler Sanjay Choudhury of Isakchak locality along with Pappu Choudhary, Nikki Kumar Choudhary and Pranav Kumar Tiwary, all natives of Bhagalpur.

“Rakesh Kumar Singh Prabhakar, deputy superintendent of police (law and order), managed to nab the two cars along with the liquor and four persons who were carrying it from Deoghar in Jharkhand state, Bharati said.

Sanjay’s arrest is a major achievement for the police.

Sanjay and his father Karoo Choudhary used to illegally brew country liquor at isolated places in Isakchak on the outskirt of Bhagalpur before prohibition set in.

Even after prohibition set in, the family remained involved in liquor trade.

The police had raided his place several times and recovered huge quantities of liquor but had failed to arrest him earlier. “He was wanted by the police for long. Even the state headquarters was mounting pressures on us to nab him,” Prabhakar said.

Prabhakar said the police were actively trying to trace the hideouts of the bootleggers using modern technology. “He is supposed to be big in the illegal liquor trade circuit in Bhagalpur and his arrest will automatically bring down availability of illegal liquor here,” the DSP claimed.

He said all the three arrested persons were active members of Sanjay’s gang. ” We are trying to locate other gang members on the basis of his confession before more arrests are made,” Prabhakar said.

Courtesy: The Telegraph