Nearly 17,000 litres of illicit liquor was seized and 60 bootleggers held in 48 hours during raids by the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police...

Nearly 17,000 litres of illicit liquor was seized and 60 bootleggers held in 48 hours during raids by the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police under a special operation to check the menace, according to official data. Operation 'Yellow Water' was launched on the night of September 24 and continued till the night of September 26, a police official said. During the period, 33 people were arrested and over 16,000 litres of liquor seized in the area under city police, including Noida, while 27 arrests were made in the rural region, where 888 litres of liquor was seized, showed the data, accessed by PTI.

The seized liquor included both English as well as country-made. According to the data, a total of 1,354 litres of English-made and 15,556 litres of country-made liquor -- totalling 16,920 litres -- was seized during the operations. Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Pal Sharma had launched the two-day concerted crackdown on bootleggers and the illegal trade of liquor in Gautam Buddh Nagar, which borders national capital Delhi. "The police is being put on mission mode to eradicate crime and put the notorious criminals behind bars. The drives are being run on (against) various nefarious activities and (we) will keep on running such drives to give peaceful atmosphere to city," Sharma told PTI.

Gautam Buddh Nagar is divided into 21 police station areas besides one dedicated women police station. Eight police stations including Sector 20, 24, 39, 49, 58, Phase 2, Phase 3 and Expressway fall under the city area. Eleven police stations including Surajpur, Kasna, Knowledge Park, Greater Noida, Ecotech 1, Ecotech 3, Bisrakh, Badalpur, Dadri, Jarcha, Dankaur, Rabupura and Jewar come under the rural area. According to the data for Operation Yellow Water, the biggest haul was made by the Sector 24 police station team which seized 15,000 litres of illegal liquor, including 48 litres English-made alcohol, and arrested six persons.

During the raids, the team led by SHO Pankaj Pant also blew the lid off an illegal liquor factory operating stealthily in adjoining Ghaziabad's Tronica City. Four people were arrested in the raid in Tronica City and 15,000 litres of illicit country liquor seized from the factory, which was running under the guise of a "juice" manufacturing unit. In the rural region, the Dadri police station team arrested nine persons and seized the maximum of 520 litres of illegal liquor, according to the data.