Two cops held for smuggling liquor from police station

PATNA: In a first of its kind incident since prohibition was enforced in Bihar in April 2016, a station house officer (SHO) and his subordinate were arrested for allegedly using their police station to smuggle liquor.
Gopalganj’s Baikunthpur police station SHO SI Laxmi Narayan Mahto and ASI Sudhir Kumar were arrested from the police station premises by district SP Rashid Zaman on Wednesday.
“A special team has been formed to probe the case,” SP Zaman told TOI over the phone and added an Economic Offences Unit (EOU) team had also reached Gopalganj following the arrests to investigate the case.
Zaman said he had received a complaint that a pick-up van laden with liquor was dispatched from Baikunthpur police station on the intervening night of September 30 and October 1. “A team was formed to probe the complaint... The team reached the police station after midnight on Tuesday and interrogated the two officers,” he said.
A police team later arrested pick-up van driver Kanahiya Sharma from Mashrakh in neighbouring Saran district on Wednesday. The consignment, he said, was unloaded at Mashrakh.
“The driver told police he had reached the police station with the empty vehicle on which the liquor was loaded at the police station,” Zaman said and added the two accused officers were forwarded to jail.
The SP said investigations were on to find out whether the liquor smuggled out of the police station had earlier been seized and not reported by police or a smuggling racket was operating from there.