Patna: Bootleggers have roped in rural women to ensure free flow of liquor in dry Bihar.

This came to the fore when three women were arrested with a little over 1,100 pouches of country liquor from a sport utility vehicle (SUV) in Lakhisarai district on Wednesday.

Pramila Devi, Sunita Devi and Bhuli Devi of Patna and Begusarai districts, respectively, told interrogators the consignment from Jharkhand's Deoghar district was to be delivered to a liquor trader of Simaria in Begusarai district.

Lakhisarai superintendent of police Arvind Thakur said initially the women tried to pass themselves off as devotees of Lord Shiva. "We are coming from Deoghar where we had gone to offer prayers to Lord Shiva," a woman said.

Another woman threatened to sue the cops. But the raiding team, led by Kawaiya police station house officer Ashutosh Kumar, kept searching the vehicle till they found pouches of country liquor inside a specially-designed box.

The owner-cum-driver of the SUV, Phulo Yadav, a resident of Sitamarampur village in Begusarai district, was also arrested. "The four were produced in court, which remanded them to 14 days in judicial custody," Thakur said.

Ashutosh, the Kawaiya police station in-charge, said a vehicle checking drive was launched on Bypass road following a tip-off that liquor was being transported from Jharkhand in a white SUV. "We were in a mood to let off the vehicle as women were travelling. But the search met with success," the SHO said.

Ashutosh said liquor traders have roped in women in large numbers to carry out operations in the state. "The bootleggers are using innovative ways to ensure smooth flow of alcohol in the state after prohibition was enforced in April," the SHO said, adding that women, school students, children and physically challenged people have been lured by the smugglers to escape the attention of the police.

A senior official of the state excise department said the smugglers earlier used fruit juice packets or multi-vitamin bottles to supply and ferry liquor. In addition, reports of liquor being transported in LPG cylinders and vegetable bags is pouring in from different parts of the state.

The bootleggers have also coined code words like Ganga jal, mithai (sweets), prasad (ambrosia), dawai (medicines), chawanni (25 paise coin), athanni (50 paise coin) and raahat (relief) for supply of liquor to the customers. "Bootlegging is slowly taking the shape of a lucrative industry like organised crime in the state," an IPS officer at the police headquarters said. "Syndicate of liquor smugglers and liquor mafia in cahoots with police and politicians has made it a big business with double to four times profit as per investment."

The police explained that people involved in bootlegging have transformed it into a well-shaped full-fledged gang, which was operating carefully and using every trick to manage it. Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bengal have turned out to be major suppliers of illegal liquor to Bihar, he said.