The Thane (rural) police have booked four people on charges of obstructing a duty team of excise police personnel from performing their duty. The accused had been caught ferrying country liquor in an auto-rickshaw on the highway in Kashimira on Monday.
Acting on a tip-off an excise team led by sub-inspector Digamber Shewale, intercepted an auto-rickshaw near Hotel Delhi Darbar. Checks on the vehicle showed that it was illegally carrying gunny bags stashed with bottles of country liquor worth around Rs.40,000 amid the ongoing lockdown in the twin-city. The auto-driver-Uttam Padhmukh (34) and another occupant Ajay Bal (26) failed to give satisfactory replies about the source of the consignment and its documents to the excise team.
In his complaint to the police, the excise personnel stated that while he and his team were getting the panchnama ready, two men, one claiming to be a human right activist came to the spot. The quartet started manhandling the on duty government personnel while leveling false accusations that they had sought bribes and the entire sequence was filmed in the camera of their mobile phones.
The excise personnel immediately alerted their police counterparts, following which a case under section 353 for assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty was registered against the accused. Three of the four accused were rounded up, even as their fourth accomplice who had claimed to have filmed the video managed to give a slip to the police team. The B-division of the Thane’s excise department is conducting further investigations into the case.
