Officially ‘destroyed’ booze bottles surface in Gujarat jail | Ahmedabad News

AHMEDABAD: Irritated by the reappearance in a Surat jail of officially destroyed liquor bottles, Gujarat high court has questioned the purpose of liquor prohibition in the state when police are involved in illegal activities.
“It appears that the destruction of seized goods was nothing but an eyewash. Let a departmental inquiry be conducted into the destruction,” HC said and ordered a report within three weeks.
The court stayed until the next hearing on August 8 any action against three constables – Pinesh Vithani, Lok Rakshak Gulab Karsanbhai, and Gram Rakshak Dal jawan Dhavalbha Kiritbhai – booked on the charge of hiding the bottles in the sub-jail.
During a raid in Oct 2021, police recovered 3,221 IMFL bottles in the sub-jail. They found that 1,678 bottles belonged to a stock of 124,300 that had supposedly been destroyed in Aug 2021 following a court order. A police complaint said that because the seized property room at Kamrej police station was too small for the large number of seized goods, they were being kept in a room at the police quarters. The three constables were named as accused.
Vithani moved HC to quash the FIR, claiming he was made a scapegoat for being a low-ranking official. He claimed the goods allegedly recovered from the sub-jail, for which he was implicated, were in fact goods supposedly destroyed under orders of a magistrate, and a panchnama dated Aug 27, 2021 had been drawn up bearing the signature of a police inspector and other authorities. He cited the make, batch numbers, and quantity of the seized liquor, which was supposedly destroyed under a court order.