Mohali, December 27: The Excise and Taxation Department arrested four persons in three cases late last night for smuggling 960 bottles of liquor from Chandigarh to be used in the panchayat elections in Punjab.
Giving details, Excise and Taxation Officer Vinod Pahuja said his team and another team, led by Excise Inspector Sarup Inder Singh Sandhu, had laid a naka on the Kharar-Morinda road. He said when a Lancer car approached the naka, they directed its driver to stop. However, the driver sped away and they chased him. When the driver took a turn towards the Ludhiana road, the chasing party informed its counterparts in Fatehgarh Sahib, who laid a naka at Khamano. The team was able to stop the driver there and during a search of the car, 156 bottles of country-made liquor were found.
A case under the Excise Act was registered against the driver, Barinder Singh of Mohan Majra, at the Khamano police station.
The team handed over the illegal consignment of liquor to the police.
In another case, the team recovered 528 bottles of liquor, including 44 of Rajdhani make and 84 of Naina whisky, from a Verna car being driven by Santokh Singh of Ronekalan village near Khanna, which also had Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Samrala, in it.
The suspects were handed over to the Gharuan police along with the liquor.
In the third case, the team seized 276 bottles of Naina whisky from a Maruti car. After registering a case against Rahul, alias Vicky, a resident of Morinda, the team handed him to the police along with the illegal whisky.
