Tirupati: 170 cases filed against liquor, sand smugglers

Tirupati: The district Special Enforcement Bureau police have been conducting raids extensively for the last three months over illicit distillation of liquor (IDL) manufacturers and on illegal sand transport mafia in the district. Similarly, they are dealing with the banned tobacco product sellers with an iron hand.

Particularly, the SEB teams are concentrating on nearby forest villages where IDL manufacturing was going on rampantly. In the last three months, the SEB had seized 35, 426 other state liquor bottles, 1,602 tetra packets of Karnataka liquor, 7, 291 litres of ID liquor and destroyed 89,563 liters of jaggery wash. Officials assessed that these seized and destroyed material worth Rs 1 crore. Similarly, the SEB police conducted raids on illegal sand transporters and seized more than 3,000 tons of sand which was ready to transport to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by the sand smugglers.

During these three months, police had registered 170 cases against the 268 ID liquor manufacturers and illegal sand transporters. In addition, around 216 vehicles were seized which have been used for smuggling of sand and ID liquor. And police seized around 9 lakh banned tobacco products packets worth above Rs 2 crore.

In this connection, Chittoor SP S Senthil Kumar said that as per the state government guidelines, only sand should transport one place to another place, otherwise it will come under liability.

To prevent sand smuggling and ID liquor making, a total 101 check posts and 10 mobile special parties were set up by the district police, the SP told. "We noticed that for easy money earning many people are going on the wrong track and involving in illegal activities like making of ID liquor and smuggling sand to neighbouring states Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, " said SP Kumar.