In a major breakthrough against illicit liquor and drugs, the police recovered a huge quantity of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), brown sugar, and marijuana by conducting raids in different places in the Seraikela-Kharsawan district on Friday.

While a truck-load consignment of illicit IMFL was seized from Khokrodih village under Chandil thana area in the small hours, a considerable amount of brown sugar was recovered from a house at Adityapur Muslim Bustee early on Friday morning.

In a spree of the raid against the liquor and drugs, the police also swooped over a field at Barad village under Ichagarh thana area under Chandil sub-division and destroyed a huge quantity of marijuana plantations developed by one Lal Singh Munda on Friday morning.

Revealing about the breakthrough, Seraikela-Kharsawan district superintendent of police, Mohammed Arshi said that the drive against illicit liquor and drugs was carried out following the instruction of director-general of police, Jharkhand, MV Rao and became a huge success.

"Following the instructions of the DGP, we had made separate teams of police officers for carrying out raids at different places of the district on Thursday. Having gathered intelligence inputs from the different sources, the teams started raiding the places in Adityapur and also Chandil sub-division area throughout the night and finally succeeded in unearthing the illicit liquor, brown sugar and destroyed marijuana plantation by Friday morning," said Arshi while talking to the newsmen at Adityapur.

Speaking about the capture of IMFL liquor, the SP said they had got a tip-off that there was an illicit liquor godown at Khokrodih in Chandil.

"Acting on the tip-off, the police team did not get any liquor godown at Khokrodih, but found a stationary truck loaded with cartons of liquors at that village about 30 km away from here. In the truck, there were 205 cartons containing 2430 IMFL bottles of a popular brand. The cost of the confiscated liquor consignment was estimated to be worth Rs 5 lakh," said the senior police officer.

Arshi said another team that was acting on a tip-off against illegal plantation of marijuana raided at a field in Barad village in Ichagarh about 45 km away from Jamshedpur early on Friday morning.

"As the police team swooped over the illegal marijuana plantation, the owner of the field, Lal Singh Munda appeared at the scene for the protest. The police team immediately arrested him under the relevant sections of the NDPS Act," he stated.

Another team which had gathered information about the brown sugar being sold at the Adityapur Muslim Bustee, raided the house of one Abdul Karim and recovered 66 packets of the narcotic drugs from the house of the accused about three km away from here this morning," said Arshi, adding that Karim was also arrested.