Patna: A sales tax deputy commissioner, Abhay Pandey, and his driver were arrested in Siwan on Friday night, allegedly for consuming liquor in violation of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act 2016.
Pandey is at present posted at Roorkee in Uttarakhand.
The police also seized two bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) from a sport utility vehicle (SUV), which too was seized. A police team intercepted the sales tax deputy commissioner's car from Srikalpur check post near the Uttar Pradesh (UP) border and seized the alcohol.
Siwan superintendent of police (SP) Navin Chandra Jha said on Saturday that the Uttarakhand official was detained around 8.30pm during routine vehicle checks near the Uttar Pradesh border.
The cops were stunned to find two bottles of alcohol in his SUV (Innova Crysta).
Both the deputy commissioner and his driver were in an inebriated condition.
Authoritative sources said the deputy commissioner was on his way to Siwan from his native village Bankata in neighbouring Deoria district of Uttar Pradesh to attend a marriage ceremony in Tanua village, around 145km northwest of Patna.
Guthani police station house officer (SHO) Mithilesh Kumar said a breathalyser test confirmed that Abhay and his driver had consumed alcohol. The seized liquor was valued at Rs 10,000, he said.
The SHO received a number of phone calls from VIPs to relieve the officer but he didn't budge. "I simply requested them not to interfere with police investigation," Mithilesh told The Telegraph over phone from Siwan.
The SP, Jha, said top Uttarakhand officials have been informed about Abhay's arrest in Bihar for violating the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act provisions. However, no identity card was recovered from Pandey's possession, he clarified.
On Monday, BJP MLA Vyasdeo Prasad's son Vikas Kumar was taken into custody with his three friends in Siwan for violating the prohibition law. In April, Gaya BJP MP Hari Manjhi's son Rahul Kumar was arrested for consuming liquor.
A little over 1.5 lakh people have been arrested in the state ever since total prohibition was clamped in the state in April 2016.
Sale, consumption and possession of liquor is banned under the new law with provisions for stringent punishment in place for those found violating the law.
The quantum of punishment includes 210 years in jail and property being confiscated. Not surprisingly, some of the measures have been called "draconian" and chief minister Nitish Kumar had in June hinted at amendments in the anti-liquor laws while maintaining that prohibition was here to stay.
