Ahmedabad: An early-morning tip-off led State Monitoring Cell straight to a residential locality in Bodakdev, where officers caught two men red-handed unloading a stash of illicit booze worth Rs 4.1 lakh on Wednesday.Police seized 597 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor and other materials totalling Rs 9.1 lakh, according to a complaint filed by SMC at Bodakdev police station.The team had received information that liquor would be unloaded near a house in Dawalpuravas in Bodakdev village. Cops kept watch and spotted two men unloading the boxes and carrying them into a lane around 8.42am.Police arrested a 32-year-old resident of Bodakdev and a 26-year-old man from Nagrasan in Kadi. They also found 120 bottles in 10 boxes, handled by the 32-year-old, and another 477 bottles in 15 boxes in the courtyard outside his house, according to the complaint.The labels on the liquor bottles stated that they were meant for “Sale in Punjab”. Police also found that batch numbers and dates had been removed from the labels. They are probing whether the markings were deliberately erased to conceal the source of the consignment.During questioning, the 32-year-old told police that he and a man from Shilaj had ordered the liquor from another Kadi resident. The 26-year-old told police that the Kadi resident had loaded 25 boxes and paid him Rs 5,000 to deliver the consignment.Police said both men have previous cases registered against them under the Gujarat Prohibition Act. They are now trying to trace the Shilaj man and Kadi resident to establish the source of the liquor and identify others involved in the supply network.
