CANACONA
Canacona police busted a major liquor racket after raiding three sites in the Tirval forest at Poinguinim, about 500 metres away from Karnataka border, and seized liquor worth Rs 9.74 lakh. Eight persons have been detained in this connection.
Four persons from across the border were intercepted while carrying headloads of liquor bags and after a hot chase, Canacona police nabbed them barely metres inside Goa’s border from Karnataka.
The store houses belong to three different persons and four people have also been detained by Canacona police.
Canacona SDPO DySP Tikam Singh Verma, IPS, and Canacona PI Chandrakant Gawas had personally supervised the operations in the Tirval forests at about 5 am on Thursday
Both officers had braved the chilly weather in the wee hours and travelled on two motorcycles in the area, where there is no mobile network coverage.
Narrating the sequence of events to media persons at the Canacona police station, DySP Verma said it was a regular check in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
“We found some persons moving in a suspicious manner in an isolated area known to be frequented by some anti-social people. Our team followed them and after waiting for some time, we found some persons carrying headloads of liquor bags towards the Karnataka border through the Tirval forest in Cotigao wildlife sanctuary.”
“Our personnel successfully chased and caught them. We found them illegally carrying liquor towards Karnataka. On further scrutiny, we found three liquor stores illegally operating in the vicinity.”
“We raided the three places and seized all liquor stock from the store houses. We are handing over the seized liquor to the excise department for further action,” DySP Verma added.
According to police sources, different liquor brands worth Rs 8.1 lakh were seized from one location, Rs 1.26 lakh worth of liquor from the second site and Rs 38,000 worth of liquor from the third site.
The alcohol seized, which comprised various brands of whisky, brandy, beer, palm and cashew feni, was later transported in two pickups to the Canacona police station.
According to Canacona PI Chandrakant Gawas, the liquor was being transported in different bags on the other side of the Goa-Karnataka border.
As part of surveillance in view of upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Canacona police have been patrolling the entire Canacona taluka’s border with Karnataka section through sea, road and forest for the last 2-3 days.
The earlier surveillance for two days did not yield any results, until Canacona police noticed some suspicious movement towards the traditional path in the forests and successfully followed the lead in the wee hours of Thursday.
Interestingly, while the Tirval forest falls in the revenue village of Poinguinim village, it is within the jurisdiction of Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary.
