Junagadh, Gujarat:

Ahead of the local body polls in Gujarat, the police have seized 107 bottles of liquor, worth around Rs 62,000, sent to Junagadh from Uttar Pradesh through a courier service, an official said on Sunday.

Gujarat is a “dry” state where manufacture, sale and consumption of liquor is banned, and bootleggers are now using a new strategy of bringing in liquor through inter-state courier services, the police said.

Acting on a tip-off, the local crime branch and B-division police conducted a raid on a courier service firm on Saturday and found 107 bottles of Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth around Rs 62,000 packed in eight parcels, sent from Bahadurgarh in Uttar Pradesh, the official said.

The parcels were to be delivered to two persons – Firoz Baloch and Wahid Qureshi – in Junagadh, the official from B-division police station said.

An FIR has been registered against three persons under provisions of the Prohibition Act, he said.

The police are keeping a close watch on cases of violation of the prohibition law ahead of the local body polls in the state as the model code of conduct is in force.

The local body elections are scheduled to be held in two phases on February 21 and 28 in Gujarat.

Elections to six municipal corporations will be held on February 21 and of various municipalities, district panchayats and taluka panchayats on February 28.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)