Bhubaneswar: The mastermind behind the smuggling of liquor in a water tanker in Odisha on February 28 had taken cues from the blockbuster movie ‘Pushpa: The Rise’, said an Excise official on Sunday following the arrest of the accused.
Late night on February 28, the Dhenkanal District Excise officials became suspicious when they found a tanker with drinking water written on it being parked on the roadside near Mahidharpur. During the search, the sleuths recovered 1,070 cases or 9224.8 liters of liquor from the tanker.
The Excise officials questioned the driver about the liquor kept clandestinely in the tanker and found the truck was going towards Angul. They seized the truck and arrested Bijendra and Satish Nandal of Haryana and Abinash Moharana from Godidiha village under Motanga police limits. Special teams of the Excise Department were formed to conduct raids at different places for the last 11 days, the Excise official added.
On Sunday morning, a team of officials raided a four storey building at Nuagaon on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar and arrested Raj Kumar for his alleged involvement in the case of liquor smuggling in the tanker.
The Excise official added Raj Kumar, who hails from Gudeikateni in Dhenkanal district, confessed during the questioning that he was inspired by the ‘Pushpa’ movie and carried out smuggling of liquor in an innovative way. “Several small clippings of ‘Pushpa’ movie were found in Raj Kumar’s smartphone which corroborates his claim,” said the official.
Raj Kumar and his family have been allegedly involved in ganja and liquor smuggling according to officials.
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