The banned gutka was brought in a truck and transported in various vehicles for sale in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar on Thursday midnight. The Crime Branch and Waluj police conducted a raid and seized the banned Goa gutka, a truck, three SUV cars, one Eicher tempo, and three bikes, amounting to around ₹1 crore. The quantity of the gutka was so large that the police were puzzled about where to keep it.
The police received information that the gutka was being brought to Limbe Jalgaon for secret sale in the city. They conducted a raid and spotted a Tata Truck (MH12 FC 8835) on the road. The accused Prabhakar Kisan Salunke (34, Limbe Jalgaon, Gangapur), Sandeep Kalyan Shendge (27, Bapunagar, Ranjangaon), Sunil Dhole (33, Tembhapur), Yogesh Pawar (24, Tembhapuri), and Dattu Patekar (27, Turkabad) were unloading the gutka from the truck and transferring it to other vehicles. The police arrested all the accused and seized all the vehicles, amounting to ₹1 crore. However, the truck driver Shaikh Saddam Shaikh Mehboob (ZP Gate, Waluj, Gangapur) managed to escape from the scene.
Based on the complaint lodged by Food Safety Officer Sulakshana Jadhvar, a case has been registered at the Waluj police station.
The police action was executed by Crime Branch PI Sandeep Gurme, API Vinayak Shelke, PSI Praveen Wagh, Yogesh Navsare, Sanjay Nand, Barbhat Mhaske, Avinash Dhage, Vijay Bhanuse, Manohar Gite, Santosh Bhanuse, Nitin Deshmukh, Dadasaheb Zargad, and others.
