In dry state Bihar, district officer arrested after ‘arriving drunk' to event attended by minister
The event, organised on National Fish Farmers Day Thursday, was attended by state Minister for Public Health and Engineering Neeraj Kumar Singh, District Magistrate Sawan Kumar and several other senior officials, including the accused, District Fisheries Officer Shambhu Kumar. Sources said, during the event the DM received complaints about irregularities in distribution of fisheries kits and called Shambhu Kumar to inquire about the same.
During the interaction, the DM felt the officer was slurring and behaving in an erratic manner, said the sources. He directed Shambhu Kumar to report to Circuit House and alerted the Excise Department.
'Yesterday, about 1 pm, the DM called to report that an officer appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and asked us to reach the Circuit House with a breath analyser. The breath analyser test was done and the officer was found to be intoxicated,' said Ashok Kumar, Inspector, Excise and Prohibition.
The Inspector said the officer's breath analyser report showed '10 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood', and he was arrested. The Excise Department learnt that it was the officer's last working day in Supaul and he was to join another posting next day.
'We found that he had previously been apprehended for intoxication at Bhimnagar checkpost on March 9, 2024. The officer, being a first-time offender, was fined between `2,000 and `5,000 as per the court order,' Ashok Kumar said.
A source said the accused officer denied consuming alcohol and said he had taken some homeopathic medicine, which might have been mistaken for alcohol intake. He gave the same explanation for his previous detention as well, said the source.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
24-yr-old man gets 20-year RI for minor's rape
Hyderabad: A man in Jagtial was sentenced to 20-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) case. The principal district and sessions judge (FAC) special sessions judge for Pocso Cases on Tuesday convicted 24-year-old Marripelli Sainath for the rape of a minor girl. He was also fined 2,000. The court granted compensation of 2 lakh to the survivor. A case was registered Sainath against under the POCSO Act on April 7, 2021. Jagtial superintendent of police (SP) Ashok Kumar said the case was investigated thoroughly by police and evidence was submitted by the Mallapur police station officers. Ashok Kumar stated there would be no escape for criminals as police would leave no stone unturned to arrest and prosecute them.
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Indian Express
In war against drug menace, Punjab Police crackdown traces major hawala conduits in Turkey, UAE
Investigations by Punjab Police into the hawala network, which funds and fuels the drugs smuggling trade in the state, has revealed that much of the illegal cash is routed through Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia, Canada, and West Asia. The Anti Narcotics Task Force (ANTF), which has been spearheading the 'Yudh Nashyean Virudh' (war on drugs) campaign in the state has been investigating the cross border linkages of the hawala transactions and has found that the maximum transactions are routed through UAE and West Asia and that money exchangers based in India are the prime movers of this illicit cash. Speaking to The Indian Express, Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav said that the crackdown on hawala network is one of the most important aspects of the war on drugs. 'We have arrested 60 people till now in connection with hawala networks linked to drugs and have recovered more than Rs 12 crore. The investigations by ANTF have found that people from different states and professions are involved in it. Linkages have been found in Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Karnataka apart from Punjab,' said Yadav. The DGP said that it is essential to hit at the financial aspect of the drugs trade so as to make it unprofitable for anyone to venture into drugs smuggling. 'The seizure and forfeiture of property being done by the Punjab Police under the relevant provisions of the NDPS Act are also a step towards this aim. All these so called gains from the drugs trade have to be traced and connected to the big fish,' said the DGP. A senior official from ANTF said that the most commonly used conduits are currency exchanges but they have also found the involvement of some mobile repair store owners in this illegal activity. 'The international links reach Dubai, Malaysia, Canada, Pakistan and Turkey. There are digital and coded transactions over phones and bank account layering is done to obscure proceeds from heroin sales,' the official said. Recovery of Rs 4.22 crore hawala money along with 423 grams heroin, 372g gold, four cars, and motorcycles. Four inter-state hawala operators were arrested. In this case backward linkages in recovery of heroine in Amritsar led to unearthing of hawala network being run by forex agents Ashok Kumar and his brothers in Phagwara, Kapurthala. Drug was being smuggled from Pakistan by one Shahbaz, a resident of Pakistan's Narowal district, through Gurbhej Singh alias Bheja who was lodged in Amritsar Jail. The hawala money was being routed through through one gym operator Harmanjit alias Harry to the forex operator Ashok Kumar who would further launder it to Dubai. In this case there was a recovery of 7kg opium along with Rs.23 lakh of drug money. Total seven people were arrested. Here, one Iqbal was the mastermind who was collecting the hawala money on the instructions of foreign based criminal Joban Kaler. Here the money was being deposited to the forex operator Ashok Kumar of Phagwara, Kapurthala. An international narco-hawala link to a Turkey-based smuggler Navpreet Bhullar was unearthed. Six people were arrested with 1kg heroine and Rs 84.02 lakh hawala money while Rs 22 lakh has been frozen in bank accounts. Turkey based Navpreet Bhullar is the mastermind of this case with Gurdeep Saab being his on ground worker in Amritsar. In this case an interstate drug network was busted with the recovery of 60kg heroin from Barmer in Rajasthan. Eleven people were arrested out of which four are from Jammu and Kashmir, two from Rajasthan, one from Haryana and four from Punjab. During the interrogation, it came to fore that Manish Daga from Jodhpur and Ashok Punjabi from Jodhpur were handling the hawala operations within India. They were acting in close coordination with Dharmendra (resident of Ajmer), who is currently residing in Dubai. Dharmendra, in turn, is directly in touch with Tanveer Shah, a Pakistan-based smuggler believed to be the mastermind behind the cross-border drug operations. Five people have been arrested in this case. In the course of investigations significant revelations regarding hawala operations have emerged during the interrogation of the main accused Jagjit Singh, resident of Tilak Nagar, Delhi, from whom Rs .6.9 Lakh has been recovered. Originally from Afghanistan, Jagjit returned to India in 2014 and had since been operating as a key hawala conduit for cross-border drug proceeds. He is working on the instructions of one Pakistan based smuggler namely Pathan.
The Hindu
17-07-2025
- The Hindu
State govt. mulls ban on toddy shops within ORR limits
The Telangana Excise and Prohibition Department has proposed shutting down all toddy shops operating within the limits of the Outer Ring Road (ORR), in a bid to crack down on the sale of adulterated toddy. The government is actively considering the proposal and has sought a detailed report from the Excise Department, according to informed sources. The move comes after the Kukatpally adulterated toddy incident that claimed at least ten lives and left over 50 individuals hospitalised. The case has led to mounting concern over the increasing use of banned substances including alprazolam, chloral hydrate and other chemicals in toddy. Sharing the rationale behind the move, a source close to the development, said that the Kukatpally incident not only triggered public outrage but also drew parallels to a similar episode in 2004, which led then Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to shut down toddy shops in Hyderabad and Secunderabad. According to data compiled by the Excise Department, a total of 454 toddy shops operate within ORR limits, functioning under 390 cooperative societies. These include 53 shops in Hyderabad, 50 in Secunderabad, 79 in Malkajgiri of Rangareddy district, 52 in Medchal, 158 in Saroornagar and 62 in Shamshabad. If the ban is implemented, it would impact toddy sales across major urban zones including Hyderabad, Secunderabad and parts of Rangareddy, particularly under the excise divisions of Malkajgiri, Medchal, Shadnagar and Saroornagar. Additionally, the government is likely to cancel Tree For Trade (TFT) toddy concessions (licensing of toddy shops to individual tappers or Tappers' Cooperative Societies) in these areas as part of the broader crackdown. Authorities maintain that removing toddy outlets from the ORR region is the only effective way to prevent the distribution of adulterated toddy in urban areas. The State government is expected to make a final decision on the proposal in the coming weeks.
