2 held for liquor smuggling in J-K

Two people were arrested today for allegedly smuggling illicit liquor into the state at Lakhanpur Inter-State Toll plaza in Kathua district.
A high-level excise department team arrested two persons while allegedly importing illicit liquor into Jammu and Kashmir, a senior official of the department said
The team recovered 80 bottles (Eight cases) of illicit liquor from one of the arrested person Sonam Dorje, a resident of District Leh, he said adding that the liquor was meant for sale in Haryana.
Sorav Gupta, a native of Panchkula in Haryana, was arrested while illegally importing 30 Bottles of Blenders Pride whisky, meant for sale in Haryana, he said.

A case has been registered against the duo in Excise Range, Kathua, the official said.
The duo are in Excise custody and further investigation is going on, he added.

Meanwhile, the department detected several cases of toll evasion during naka checking and inspection of minor toll posts in Kathua district.
During a checking of vehicles en-route Lakhanpur to Jammu on highway, they found that four vehicles were charged less toll viz-a-viz actual load of the vehicles, the official said.
On the directions of top officials, vehicles were put to weighing on a nearest weigh bridge and huge variation of gross weight was noticed.

Accordingly all the aforementioned vehicles were fined and an amount of Rs 62,000 was recovered from the defaulters, he said.