Patna: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested 13 youths and recovered 441 litres of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) from a Patna-bound Shalimar-Patna Duronto Express late on Wednesday night.
The RPF, based on specific inputs, conducted a search operation on the train and recovered the liquor. The seized liquor included tetra packs of whisky and beer bottles.
The gang which mostly comprised people in the age group of 20 to 25 years, were in the liquor smuggling business for the past few months and prior to this they had smuggled liquor from Bengal on several occasions.
Patna superintendent of police (SP), railways, Ashok Kumar Singh said: "The railway protection force (RPF) had specific inputs that some liquor smugglers travelling on the Shamilar-Patna Duronto Express were carrying a large quantity of liquor. The RPF searched different compartments and recovered liquor bottles."
Singh added that all liquor smugglers had valid railway tickets and had stored the liquor bottles in cloth packets.
According to the railway SP, the liquor bottles and tetra packs were stored in cloth packets. The 13 arrested persons were in different compartments. They confessed that they had purchased the liquor from different areas in Calcutta worth more than Rs 5 lakh.
According to sources, the liquor seized were priced between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and the smugglers were planning to sell it at double the price. The seized liquor were of different brands and sizes. Apart from seizure of liquor bottles, the railway police also recovered Rs 71,000 and 14 mobile phones. The cops also recovered around 5kg of ganja. The arrested youths are from Barh and Mokama regions and were into liquor smuggling to earn quick money.
Singh said: "The arrested youths have disclosed names of places from where they had purchased liquor and where they had to deliver the consignment in Patna."
According to the railway police, this is the biggest consignment of liquor seizures in the recent past as the gang was active in the Howrah-Danapur section.
To check illegal liquor supply in the area, the Patna railway police have constituted special task force which will conducts raids at Koderma, Hathidah, Buxar, the Gaya section and other areas. These sections are in the border areas and generally smugglers from Jharkhand, Bengal and UP borders enter Bihar from these points.