Kochi: Couple held for sale of spurious liquor

Kochi: The Excise sleuths on Saturday seized 20 litres of arrack and 25 litres of spurious liquor from a couple in Kothamangalam. The sleuths arrested Sreekumar, 44, and wife Deepa, 34, of Kothaman-galam village after the items including 20 empty bottles used for selling arrack were seized from their house.

As per the directions from A.S. Ranjith, Excise Deputy Commissioner, Ernakulam, the Ernak-ulam Excise Special Squ-ad, Kothamangalam Exc-ise Circle, Kothamangal-am Excise Range, and Kuttampuzha Excise Ra-nge jointly conducted the raid.

The sleuths were on a close watch on the couple for the last six months after receiving information about their illicit trade. According to officials, they sent a guy in the guise of a buyer and the couple delivered him the item from the stock kept at their home. “A raid was conducted at their house shortly after that and the materials were seized,” said a senior official.

The accused were arrested under Sections 1, 2, 55 (a) and 55 (d) of the Abkari Act. The officials then traced their source of arrack to a resident of Kuttampuzha near Koth-amangalam. Shortly the-reafter, in a raid conducted by Sabu Jacob, Range Inspector, Kuttampuzha, twenty litres of arrack, 225 litres of wash and equipment used for distilling were seized from his home at Kuttamp-uzha. “We have intensified the search to trace out the person who supplied illicit foreign liquor and he will be caught soon,” A.S. Ranjith, Dep-uty Excise Commissi-oner, Ernakulam told DC.

The accused were later produced before the court and remanded.