He was dubbed the king of bootlegging in Gujarat. And, not without reason. Using his liquor licence as a former Army man, Joginder Sharma used to supply illicit liquor worth no less than Rs 60 lakh to the state daily. Sharma was arrested by crime branch officials on Thursday evening.
His arrest, said officials, will throw the illicit liquor supply network in Gujarat out of sync. For 12 years, Sharma, a resident of Odhav, had worked in the Indian Army’s short-service commission. He retired as a subedar in 2002 and used to sell booze on the sly to a select few.
He was quick to realize that this is a lucrative form of business and then he joined hands with Kailash Rathi, a bootlegger of the city with several prohibition offenses against him. Later, in 2004, Sharma was caught and also booked under PASA for being a habitual offender. After serving his sentence, he restarted the liquor business as a wholesaler.
He also shifted to Chandigarh, his home town, and procured a licence for a wine shop. He used to procure Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in large consignments and sent this to bootleggers of Gujarat who were linked to him.
“He often used huge trailers to send his liquor consignments to Gujarat. Since the last five years, he had sent at least one such trailer to Gujarat everyday. The liquor was off-loaded from the trailer into smaller vehicles by city-based bootleggers who then smuggled the liquor into the city. Most bootleggers we caught during this period used to point at him as the main supplier, but Sharma had remained elusive till date,” said police officials.
-via The Times of India.
