The Bihar police with the help of the Delhi Crime Branch arrested one of the key accused in the Saran hooch tragedy case, which took over 70 lives last month, from the national Capital region on Thursday evening, a senior official said. The accused has been identified as Mangal Rai, a resident of Agothar village under Ishuapur police station of Saran district.
This is the second arrest from Delhi in the same case. Earlier one Ram Babu Mahto was arrested from Dwarka area.
Rai’s name surfaced during the probe by a special investigation team (SIT), constituted to nab the accused. He fled to New Delhi after the incident.
Saran superintendent of police (SP) Dr Gourav Mangla on Friday told HT that Rai will be brought to Saran today. He added that the accused faces over nine cases lodged with Masrakh, Taraiya and Ishuapur police stations between April 2017 and August 2021. All the cases are related to the Bihar Excise Act.
The Saran SP said that Rai is the person who supplied spirit and chemicals to the mastermind of the case, Rajesh Singh alias Doctor, for preparing liquor mixed with spirit, homeopathy medicine and chemicals to distribute among the vendors as well as the victims. Rai brought the spirit and chemicals from different parts of Uttar Pradesh.
So far, the police have arrest 18 accused including a homeopathy medicine supplier Sanjiv Kumar Srivastava from Varanasi.
The Bihar police on Tuesday decided to hand over the probe into the Saran hooch tragedy to the prohibition division of the Crime Investigation Department (CID).
