LUCKNOW: A truck loaded with liquor bottles to be smuggled into Bihar overturned on the Purvanchal expressway near Azamgarh on Saturday morning. The truck broke through the expressway railing and plunged 20 feet into a ditch, police said.
SHO Pawai in Azamgarh, Pradeep Mishra, said thousands of Indian made liquor bottles were concealed in the truck. “The front and rear sections of the truck were stacked with soil-filled gunny sacks, while the middle portion was packed with liquor bottles to hoodwink cops at checkpoints,” the SHO said.
After the truck plunged into the ditch around 1,000 liquor bottles fell out of it, said SSP Azamgarh, Hemraj Meena. He said police recovered around 1,650 litres of liquor from the truck. The truck driver fled after the crash, the SSP added.
“The truck was coming from Barmer in Rajasthan. The truck was part of a larger smuggling network transporting liquor from Punjab to Bihar where liquor is banned. Punjab to Bihar is a common route for liquor smuggling,” said Meena.
SSP said this is the only route connecting eastern UP to Bihar, and in the past, police have busted gangs using the same route to smuggle liquor into Bihar. “We have observed a pattern where smugglers use this route, often transporting goods of little to no value, such as soil and sand, suggesting that it is deliberately used for liquor smuggling,” he told TOI.
“A few days ago, we had busted a gang that smuggled liquor bottles by concealing them in the toolbox of trucks,” he said.
Meena added that police conduct random checking of trucks on Purvanchal expressway to stop smuggling of liquor.
