A special team from Ranchi’s Excise Department conducted surprise raids on two government-run liquor shops in Dhanbad, seizing a total of 256 bottles of suspected spurious and adulterated liquor.
The raids late Thursday night were led by Excise Superintendent Sudhir Kumar, acting on inputs about illegal liquor sales in licensed outlets. The team recovered 17 suspected liquor bottles from a shop at Memco Mod, Eight Lane, and 239 bottles from another at a Gol building.
Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Magistrate Aditya Ranjan said that following the tip-off, Executive Magistrates Ravindranath Thakur and L B K. Sahdev were deputed to accompany the raiding team.
Multiple irregularities were found at both locations. The shop salesmen failed to give satisfactory explanations regarding the stock and were immediately detained and handed over to the local Excise Police Station.
The seized bottles have been submitted to the district excise office and will be sent for forensic testing. Further legal action will follow based on the test results under the Excise Act, officials said.