Bengaluru: With the Karnataka Assembly Elections approaching, the state authorities have beefed up measures to seize the illegal goods being transported across state borders. As informed by the officials, the amount of cash, liquor and other such gifts meant to lure voters that have been seized in the past 20 days has surpassed the amount recovered last year.
As per the press release shared by the State Election Commission, the election vigilante teams have so far seized a total amount of cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals and free gifts worth Rs 187 crores between March 29 and August 17. Whereas the total seizure made during the last elections was Rs 185.74 crore -- which is about 2 crores lesser than the amount seized within the past 20 days this year.
The total amount of cash seized in this confiscation amounts to Rs 75.17 crores, while the price of the gift articles seized amounts to Rs 19 crores. A total of 9,82,756 litres of liquor worth Rs 40.93 crore, 908 kg of drugs worth Rs 15.2 crore, 75.30 kg of gold worth Rs 33.61 crore, and 454.707 kg of silver worth Rs 3.21 crore were seized.
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Besides, the Intelligence Squad, Fixed Surveillance Team and police officers have registered a total of 1,550 FIRs, against people involved in the trade of illegal cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals and gifts. A total of 69,104 weapons have been collected since the date of the election announcement, the authorities said. The election officials further informed that 18 weapons have been confiscated and the licenses of 20 weapons have been cancelled.
4,253 cases have been registered under the CrPC Act, the authorities said. As many as 10,817 non-bailable warrants have been executed since the day the election was declared.
