Two weeks after three people were arrested and a factory that manufactured alcoholic drinks in the guise of herbal syrup was busted near Ahmedabad, the Devbhumi Dwarka police has arrested another three, including a factory owner from Punjab, for manufacturing a similar drink and selling it as Ayurvedic syrup in Gujarat. The crackdown on the Punjab factory owner and two men from Khambhalia town of Devbhumi Dwarka district came after police raided a shop near Khambhalia and seized 15,624 bottles bearing labels of Ayurvedic syrup. However, the bottles allegedly contained alcohol that is not distilled using conventional methods. Rather, it contained naturally fermented alcohol due to the medicinal properties of the Ayurvedic ingredients. The Punjab man has been identified as Pankaj Khosla, a resident of Pratapnagar in Sangrur, while the two Khambhalia men have been identified as Chirag Thobhani and Akram Banva. After police inspector NH Joshi, in charge of Khambhalia police station, raided a shop belonging to Banva near Bhanvari village, investigation revealed that Banva and his partner Thobhani didn’t have a licence to store such the drug. Hence, they forged documents and procured the syrup worth Rs 26.28 lakh from Narayani Herbal, a factory belonging to Khosla in Sangrur. Devbhumi Dwarka police superintendent Nitesh Pandey said he sent a team to Punjab after the two from Khambhalia said they had procured the consignment of alcohol from Narayani Herbal. The team arrested Khosla who later told police that besides making Ayurveda products, he had been packing alcohol mixed with water in bottles having labels of Ayurvedic syrup for the past one-and-a-half years and supplying it to Gujarat through some channel to earn quick money.
