New turn to wheat smuggling racket

Jarnail Singh SHO of the GRP Police Station said he had written to the Railway authorities to provide him the record of loading parties on the basis of which further action could be taken. Station Superintendent Harbans Lal said he had provided all the records to the GRP men so far. No breakthrough in the case seems possible in the near future since the wheat had been smuggled under fictitious names of farmers who had been exempt from all kinds of taxes and allowed to send their produce to any part of the country. Hence, the GRP raids on the basis of records provided by the Railway authorities, have yielded no results so far.

The racket had came to light when a team of Food and Civil Supplies Department had raided the local railway godown and found that 1,200 bags of wheat were being loaded into a railway wagon. This consignment was booked for some southern states without payment of the Rural Development Fund, market fee and the sales tax.

Since the consignment was booked under fake names, nobody could be apprehended. However, the raiding authorities confirmed to ENS that the practice of smuggling wheat in connivance with the Railway authorities had been continuing since long and lakhs of bags of wheat had been sent to other states in this way from Bathinda, Malout, Gidderbaha, Faridkot, Ferozepur among others. Inderdeep Singh, Deputy Director Food and Civil Supplies, said it was very necessary to pin the culprits who had been indulging in such malpractices for long.