Illicit liquor: Investigation points at prominent liquor group

Amit Bathla
Tribune News Service
Panchkula, October 5

The bottle caps seized from an SUV, which was recovered from an illegal liquor manufacturing unit busted in Raipur Rani yesterday, have an apparent reference to a prominent liquor group that has its distilleries in Punjab and Haryana.

Panipat connection

• During the initial interrogation, the suspects had told the police that they used to bring all manufacturing items from Panipat. Officials said they could not share the exact location from where the suspects were transporting material to manufacture illegal liquor as it would hamper the investigation.
• They said it would be revealed during the course of the investigation whether raw material was being manufactured in Panipat or somewhere else.

According to the FIR filed at the Raipur Rani police station, the Chief Minister’s flying squad seized an Innova bearing registration number HR 70V 3056 from which they recovered a sack of bottle caps bearing NV branding on them.

The name of NV Distilleries had cropped up during investigation into liquor smuggling in Haryana.

Siddharth Dhanda, DSP, CM’s flying squad, Ambala range, said prima facie, it seems they were manufacturing illegal liquor in NV’s name. However, things would get clear during further investigation.

During the initial interrogation, the suspects had told the police that they used to bring all manufacturing items from Panipat. Officials said they could not share the exact location from where the suspects were transporting material to manufacture illegal liquor as it would hamper the investigation.

They said it would be revealed during the course of the investigation whether raw material was being manufactured in Panipat or somewhere else.

Nothing to do with

case: NV Distillers

Shiv Kumar Sinha, executive vice-president, sales and marketing, NV Distilleries, said their brands were very popular and many fake liquor manufacturers were using

their name.

“NV Distillers has nothing to do with the liquor recovered from the illegal manufacturing unit in Raipur Rani,” he said.

According to the information available on the official website of NV group (nvgroup.co.in), NV’s Ambala unit has a capacity to manufacture 75,000 litres of extra neural alcohol per day and a bottling facility, which is capable of bottling 30,000 cases per day. Apart from having several own brands, the company has association with popular brands such as 100 Pipers Scotch, Passport Scotch, Royal Stag, Imperial Blue and Blenders Pride Whiskey.