ADG denies reports of rats binging on booze in police stations

PATNA: A day after bleaching powder mixed with rat kill was sprayed in the Kankarbagh police station’s ‘maal-khana’ in Patna amid reports that certain SHOs had told their seniors that rodents were to blame for missing seized liquor,

ADG

(HQ) S K Singhal on Friday denied media reports that rats were being claimed to have destroyed the seized liquor in police stations.

Certain SHOs of police stations in Patna were learned to have told their senior officers at a crime meeting of the district on Tuesday that rats nibbling liquor bottle caps and consuming the liquor were to blame for the missing liquor bottles. They had also said that some bottles were destroyed due to carelessness of police personnel.

“The state police HQ had sought reports from all the districts. The reports say nowhere was the liquor kept in the ‘maalkhana’ was destroyed by rats,” Singhal told a presser.

Singhal said SI

Rameshwar Prasad Singh

of the

Kazimohammadpur

police station in Muzaffarpur was suspended after his arrest around Thursday midnight in an inebriated state. The ADG admitted that the SI consumed the liquor after taking out one bottle from a seized consignment.

Directives have been given to officers at the district level to destroy the seized liquor. “There are provisions in the Bihar Excise (amendment) Act, 2016 for destruction of the exhibits which can be misused,” the ADG said, adding 685 cartons of

IMFL

were destroyed in Saran district recently.

He said the government was maintaining “zero-tolerance” policy on prohibition. He, however, evaded a question if any directive had been given for verifying the stocks of seized liquor stored in police stations.

Kankarbagh police station SHO Ravi Bhushan, however, told TOI on Friday that rat-killing chemicals were sprayed in the police station’s ‘maalkhana’ to save the seized liquor from rodents.

Since April 5 last year when prohibition was enforced in Bihar, at least 5.11 lakh litres of IMFL, 3.01 lakh litres of country liquor and 12,000 litres of beer were seized by law-enforcing agencies from different parts of the state, sources said, adding a large chunk of these seized liquor were stored at the ‘maalkhana’ of police stations across the state.