Bhubaneswar: Excise department officials on Monday seized a huge quantity of duplicate liquor from a government-licensed shop in Baramunda area of Bhubaneswar.
Sources said that the seizure was made when Excise department sleuths conducted a surprise raid at the licensed store located in Baramunda area of the capital city.
The department officials had earlier collected some samples and found that the cap of liquor bottles, hologram and other features were different from that of the original brands.
Following this, an Excise department team first conducted a raid at the place where the staff of the shop were staying and found several caps and excise adhesives found.
Thereafter, they raided the shop and detected the same cap and labels on several liquor bottles, said an official.
The authenticity of liquor can be verified by scanning the QR code which will then show the serial number of the bottle, brand and quantity. The Excise department staff will collect samples from different liquor shops at regular intervals. Samples and stock of other shops will also be collected and checked.
During the raid conducted on Monday, all the stock worth around Rs 40 lakh has been seized and samples will be sent for examination. A person from Jharkhand is the licensee of the shop.