Excise department on a high after wine seizure

KOCHI: With the seizure of 851 bottles of wine from the Ernakulam railway station on Monday, the excise department suspect that such illegal activities have been going on in the state for past several days.The seized wine was smuggled from Delhi via Goa. Owing to the high demand for wine in the state, more people are getting involved in the smuggling through roads and trains. According to the sources, the department knows about ganja smuggling from Andra Pradesh and Orissa and it being sold in Kochi at much higher prices.However, the excise department had no idea about the smuggling of wine. “The major reason for transporting wine and other liquor brands to Kochi is the high consumption of such beverages here. The liquor and alcoholic substances especially, foreign-made are very popular here. One can earn upto double profit by selling it in the black market. Quizzing arrested people led to the knowledge of the fact that they have been active in the business for several months.Since, Kochi is also highly visited by tourists, such foreign-made liquors are smuggled to Kochi in high numbers”, the excise intelligence sources said. Excise Range Officer, C I, M Rajashekaran said that the demand for wine and other alcoholic substances will increase with the arrival of Christmas season. “The demand for the wine is high among tourists and they prefer drinking it during the Christmas season. This is the first time when we seized such large quantity of beverage item smuggled through train. We have alerted the police and Railway Protection Force to keep a tab on such illegal activities. We do not have the permit to conduct checks inside the trains and we can only act on the directions of railway authorities. We can seize smuggled goods only after they are brought out of the railway station.We have also alerted the border check post as such activities will only increase during the Christmas season,” M Rajashekaran said. The Railway Protection Force officials said the authority are taking proper measures so that such substances cannot be transported through railways. “The Tuesday night seizure was as a part of the routine checking. We check luggage as a part of the routine and have caught several people transporting banned goods” a railway official on condition of anonymity said.The seizure of wine bottles was done by RPF CI A K Prince, S I Roy Mathai, ASI Rajendara Kurup, Excise Intelligence Inspector, K C Byju and preventive office Vikaraman Nair. The RPF and Excise department have also arrested two persons in this case.