Punjab: The Devbhumi Dwarka police have detained a man named Pankaj Khosla for operating the factory situated in the Sangrur district of Punjab. The police recently conducted a raid at a factory operating in Sangrur here and discovered that the facility was producing alcoholic ayurvedic syrup exclusively for the Gujarat market. It is learnt that the factory managed to distribute approximately two lakh bottles of this syrup to Gujarat within the past year.

As the sale of alcohol is prohibited in Gujarat, this alcoholic ayurvedic syrup was deceptively marketed as an ‘ayurvedic herbal drink’ and was being sold at paan shops throughout the state. The factory had intentions of expanding its operations due to the syrup’s increasing popularity among consumers.

During the factory raid, law enforcement seized sufficient raw materials to manufacture an additional 2 lakh bottles of the same syrup.

“We raided the factory in Punjab, and after questioning Khosla, we learned that he was abusing the terms and conditions of the excise and foods and drugs departments there,” said Nitesh Pandey, the superintendent of police for Devbhumi Dwarka. Accused was producing ayurvedic syrup with alcohol added and marketing it to the Gujarat market under the moniker of self-generated alcohol, Pandey added.

During the course of the previous year, Khosla reportedly sold around two lakh bottles of this alcoholic ayurvedic syrup through the distributor Thobhani in several parts of Gujarat. According to police officials, the suspects were illegally making money by selling alcoholic syrup within Gujarat and were transporting supplies there using forged invoices with bogus GST numbers.

In a similar incident earlier this month, another factory producing such syrup was discovered in Changodar, located in the Ahmedabad district. The police action in Punjab came after receiving information from distributor Chirag Thobhani (a resident of Ahmedabad), who is already in police custody in relation to the Changodar factory.

Thobhani was nabbed on the basis of the statement of driver Akram Najir Banva, who was arrested after the police intercepted a truck on August 6 near Bhanvadi village in the Khambhalia taluka. During the seizure of the truck, the police confiscated 15,624 bottles of the suspected syrup. DeshGujarat

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