Asola Bhatti: Forest officials attacked by liquor smugglers

New Delhi: With Delhi set to face a temporary liquor shortage in October in light of all private liquor vends being shut to make way for the swanky ones from November 17, several forest officials manning the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary here were on Thursday evening assaulted and grievously injured by liquor smugglers, who were trying to bring alcohol from Haryana to Delhi. According to the police officials, during patrolling in the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, the liquor mafia attacked the forest officials and all injured officials were brought to nearby Batra Hospital for treatment.

Police also confirmed that the DCF South was threatened by liquor smugglers near the south division headquarters inside the wildlife sanctuary, with a forest department source saying that they had recently launched a crackdown on smugglers, due to which the liquor mafia might have been in a frenzy.

On Thursday, based on a tip-off, the team of the department went to raid the forest in search of liquor smugglers. However, some of them were waiting for the raids and ambushed the team, attacking them with bricks, stones, and sticks. Those aware of the sequence of events said that the smugglers fled soon after the attack. "It is worth mentioning that liquor smugglers bring liquor from Haryana and supply liquor to Delhi through Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary," police officials mentioned.

Till the time of filing this report, an FIR was yet to be registered in the matter. Significantly, liquor smuggling has been a problem faced by Delhi for years now, which among other reasons, is due to the absence of liquor vends in several wards. As a fix, the Delhi govt had redrawn the location of liquor vends in the city as part of its new Excise Policy to make sure there are liquor vends in every ward. However, with the policy set to kick in only in November, and the government set to exit the liquor business for good, October will be a relatively dry month in over 100 wards of the city, where there will be no liquor shops from October 1 to November 16.

The Delhi govt has now directed all state-run liquor shops to maintain sufficient stocks till November 16, after which there will be 27 liquor shops in each of the 32 excise zones (each of which covers 8-10 wards).