After the Barabanki liquor incident, it is clear that whatever liquor is being sold in the entire UP, there is no guarantee whether the bar code on the bottles are real or fake. These bar codes are put on the bottles of English liquor in the same way as on the country liquor bottles. Adjacent to the government country liquor contract shop in Raniganj, Barabanki, there is also an English liquor contract shop.Owner of both the shop is the same person accused in hooch tragedy.
Earlier also U.P police have been receiving complaints regarding duplicate bar codes and stickers. Information that the bottles available at the English liquor shops have duplicate bar codes were also received, but no attention was paid. In this regard no initiative has been taken by the Excise Department. After the Barabanki scandal, during the raids it was found that bar codes were also being printed by different factories . On 14th April, a bar code sticker bundle was recovered from the factory in Fatehpur tehsil headquarters.
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It is now clear that in Barabanki, not one or two but many gangs are doing business to sell fake liquor through official liquor shops. The SP, Ajay Sahni, admitted that counterfeit bar codes were used in the country liquor bottles recovered from the spot and they were similar to the original ones. He said that efforts are being made to identify the place from were they were printed and it will be revealed soon. SP said that this time the possibility of bar code being used in other districts cannot be denied. It is clear from the statement of SP that it is difficult to find out the bar code being used in the rest of the districts in UP is fake or real. It means that in other cities, the liquor consumers who are buying and consuming liquor are at risk because it can not be said with authority, that the liquor they have consumed is fake or real.
According to the SP of Barabanki, it was found that most of the codes were fake and the real one were that were allotted to Ramnagar II shop. In this case, the role of the whole seller of liquor (CL Two) has also been found to be suspicious. Cancelling of his license has been recommended. In the investigation so far, it was found that the liquor sold in Raniganj liquor contracts shop was allocated to another shop. The UP excise department does not say a word in this matter as the situation is same across the entire UP. The UP Excise Commissioner, taking into account the interest of the liquor consumer, should clarify that the bar codes used are not fake, but this is hardly possible.