Tirupati: Lockdown turns blessing for bootleggers

Tirupati: The lockdown has turned as blessing in disguise for miscreants who were involved in making of illicitly distilled liquor (IDL) across the remote villages in borders of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the district.

For the last two weeks, the district police have conducted raids at several hideouts in remote villages where the IDL was manufactured and destroyed around 30,000 litres of IDL as well as the materials –jaggery, wash and spirit being used for the same. All the sub-divisions Chittoor, Madanapalli, Puttur and Palamaneru police have participated in the raids.

According to official information, many local miscreant groups are using the lockdown period as advantageous and making IDL in remote villages of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka borders in the district. It may be noted that in view of corona virus outbreak, the state government has imposed ban on liquor sales. In the hard times, thousands of alcohol lovers are secretly searching for buying illicitly distilled liquor in villages.

Interestingly, at a time IDL making activity was raised in the district when the lockdown was announced by the government. The miscreants are using forest areas at remote villages as hideouts for IDL manufacturing and using wash, sprite, jaggery in large scale.

In the last two weeks, the Chittoor police have destroyed thousands of litres IDL as well as using material continuously in their raids. To act tough on this, SP Senthil Kumar formed special teams with armed reserve and local police.

On the strict instructions of SP, these special teams have been conducting cordon and search in nearby forest villages across TN and Karnataka borders.

So far, more than 150 members were arrested by the police in various IDL sales and manufacturing cases in the raids conducted by the police in KV Palli, Vayalpadu, G D Nellore, Karveti Nagaram, Palasamudram, Madanapalli, Thamballapalli, Pileru and Mulaka Cheruvu mandals.

SP is continuing his surveillance through special branch police to prevent manufacturing and selling of IDL in remote villages of the district.