Chennai, June 13(BPNS)

The closure of TASMAC shops and shortage of liquor have led to the emergence of a large number of bootleggers and smugglers of liquor from the neighbouring states of Andhra, Karnataka, and Puducherry to various parts of Tamil Nadu.

The state police Prohibition and Enforcement wing in a statement said that the police have arrested a person, P. Sankar, 39 for selling arrack at the doorsteps of consumers by filling in mineral water bottles.

The man was nabbed by the Kanchipuram police station after they found Pandyan moving in suspicious circumstances with a heavy bag and on questioning him found that it was full of mineral water bottles which when opened turned out to be arrack.

Police have booked Sankar under different sections of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act 1937 and arrested him. The police confiscated 10 bottles of arrack under the guise of mineral water and several polythene packets which could have been passed off as mineral water.

DSP of Prohibition Enforcement Wing of the Tamil Nadu Police, Purushothaman Ramakrishnan while speaking to BPNS said, “He has said that he had brought the arrack from Puducherry and bottled them in pet bottles to sell to his clients. We are conducting a thorough inquiry into the same. There is a high increase in smuggling of liquor, both arrack, and IMFL into Tamil Nadu by interstate gangs and we are trying our best to bust these rackets.”