Liquor mafia, police nexus
Jhabua: Liquor mafias are getting full support from many police officials here, hence their courage has increased so high that they began to say, ‘police are in their pocket’. Recently, some examples of this nexus of liquor mafia and police were surfaced clearly.
Few days ago, police constables of Sarangi seized six liquor boxes in village Dhol, illegally transported on a bike and nabbed two accused. But, soon the Petlawad TI reached there and asked the constables to release the accused with the boxes. However, the paper work was done, hence, that could not be cancelled completely.
Thus, because of the pressure of the TI, the case was filed only against one accused and seizure of only two boxes was recorded. However, our photographer was quite alert and he captured the photograph of six boxes and two accused. Hence, this incident of May 6, clearly uncovered the nexus of police with the liquor mafia.
Because of this level of cooperation from police, the liquor mafias have become valiant. From the prime places inside the city, like Bus-stand and Rajgarh Naka too, the transportation of liquor has become common. A newly emerged mafia has got strong ties with some police officers and because of their support, he used to persuade the retail dealers to buy liquor from him.
According to sources, this newly emerged mafia has one ‘godfather’, who is a partner with one big liquor contractor of Khandwa. The godfather is popularly called ‘Dada’ and he has strong relations with some local police officials and he also has connections with other mafias of the region of Jhabua and other districts of Nimar. Having his hand on the back, this new mafia is fearless from police action.
Besides the illegal transportation of liquor and wine, another tactics of mafia is that, they convert the illegal liquor in legal (or billed) packs, then distribute them in the rural retail outlets or send them to Gujrat. These all activities are running here, since many months, but the local police officials are just ignoring it. Therefore, it seems that, if this nexus of police and mafia will continue, the business of liquor mafia will continue to flourish in the region.