 "Diageo, alcohol, liquor")
The Devbhumi Dwarka police recently busted a factory in Sangrur district in Punjab making alcoholic ayurvedic syrup for Gujarat markets.
In the last one year, the factory had manufactured around two lakh bottles of the syrup for Gujarat, according to a report in The Times of India (TOI).
The sale of alcohol is prohibited in Gujarat.
The police seized raw material enough to make another two lakh bottles of such syrup.
The alcoholic ayurvedic syrup was sold as an "ayurvedic herbal drink" at paan shops across the state. The police detained Pankaj Khosla, who was running the factory.
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Earlier this month, The Devbhumi Dwarka police had busted a factory making such syrup at Changodar in Ahmedabad.
Distributor Chirag Thobhani had informed the police regarding the supply he was getting from the state, following which the police conducted a raid.
Thobhani was already in police custody in connection with the Changodar factory.
Thobhani was detained following a statement by a truck driver, who had been arrested after police seized his truck on August 6 near Bhanvadi village of Khambhalia taluka.
The police had seized 15,624 bottles of suspected syrup from the truck.
Nitesh Pandey, Devbhumi Dwarka superintendent of police (SP), said, "We raided the factory in Punjab, and after interrogating Khosla, we came to know that he was misusing the terms and conditions of the excise, and foods and drugs departments there. He was manufacturing ayurvedic syrup with added alcohol and selling it in the name of self-generated alcohol targeting Gujarat market."
The SP said that an initial investigation showed that Khosla had sold around two lakh bottles of such alcoholic ayurvedic syrup in various districts of Gujarat over the last one year through distributor Thobhani, according to the TOI report.
The police said that the accused were making money by selling alcoholic syrup in Gujarat and were making fake bills with forged GST numbers for transportation of the material to Gujarat.
