Vadodara: Within a span of nine days ending Jan 22, enforcement agencies carried out seven major seizures of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) across five districts of central Gujarat, with the total haul valued at over Rs 6.04 crore. .The seizures were spread across Dahod, Panchmahal, Anand, Mahisagar and Vadodara with Dahod, which borders Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, accounting for four cases.The crackdown began on Uttarayan, when the Local Crime Branch (LCB) of Dahod district police seized IMFL worth Rs 1.35 crore near Dahod. The consignment, routed via the Khangela outpost, was headed towards Godhra. On the same day, the State Monitoring Cell (SMC) seized liquor worth Rs 45 lakh in Ode village of Anand district.After Jan 14, the series continued, with police in Dahod, Mahisagar, Panchmahal and Vadodara city each making one seizure valued at over Rs 30 lakh. The value of the seized consignments ranged from Rs 34 lakh to Rs 1.84 crore. In three cases, liquor was intercepted while being unloaded from trucks into smaller vehicles, while the remaining four seizures were made on highways or at check posts during transit.Inspector General of Police (IGP) of the Panchmahal–Godhra range, Rajendra Asari, said the recoveries were the result of heightened vigilance at border check posts. “Check posts have been kept under tight surveillance and are now equipped with CCTV cameras. This has helped in detecting not only liquor consignments but also contraband such as marijuana and poppy straw,” he said.Asari attributed the recent spurt in seizures to increased alertness ahead of the New Year celebrations and Uttarayan. He added that timely intelligence inputs from informers also played a crucial role.Sources said the scale and frequency of the seizures surprised even officials involved in the operations. “We are also trying to understand what triggered this sudden surge,” an official said. Another officer suggested that, apart from improved policing, bootleggers may have attempted to push larger quantities of liquor to compensate for losses suffered in the initial seizures.
