Drone to keep vigil on illicit liquor trade

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 7

To nail smugglers and dealers of illicit liquor in the rural belt, the Amritsar (rural) police have launched drone surveillance. The project was launched at Pandora village falling under the Kamboh police station here.

The DSP (Narcotics) would supervise the project on a daily basis. SP (Operations) Shailandra Singh said an inspector-rank official would monitor the entire operation from a control room and prepare a report to be submitted to senior police officials.

He said at present, the drone surveillance would be carried out at densely populated villages. He said the project would be then extended to other villages and later to cover the entire rural belt in the near future.

“We are hoping that the drone surveillance would help stem the problem of not only illicit manufacturing of liquor but of drug traffickers as well,” said SP Singh, adding that the government would adopt a ‘no-tolerance approach’ towards illicit liquor smugglers.

Meanwhile, the police have launched a crackdown on bootlegging. In the past 24 hours, the rural police nabbed nine bootleggers and seized 252 litres of illicit liquor and 786 kg of lahan. The police have busted seven illegal stills in the past one week.

The police have tighten the noose around the illicit liquor trade following the death of over 100 people after consuming illicit liquor in Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur districts.