Guwahati, June 30: A joint team of excise and food safety personnel raided a godown in Assam's Golaghat district on Wednesday and destroyed 2,500 containers of molasses stored there for making illicit liquor, officials said.
The containers of molasses, locally called 'lali gur', were seized during the search operation at the godown in Merapani near the Assam-Nagaland border, they said. The molasses containers were destroyed in a nearby pond in the presence of excise and food safety officers, police personnel, and representatives of various organisations. The food safety department had served notice to the owner of the godown on June 20 and asked him to destroy the molasses that he had stored there without any valid document, the officials said.
As the proprietor of the godown did not pay heed to the department's plea, the unit was sealed. A food safety officer lodged an FIR against him at Merapani Police Station, they said. The Assam government had banned molasses across the state, in a move to tackle the menace of illicit liquor after it claimed more than 160 lives in Jorhat and Golaghat in 2019.
