Ghaziabad, Feb 9 (PTI) Two men were arrested after over 7,000 bottles of smuggled liquor were seized from a truck in the Masuri area along Eastern Peripheral Expressway here, police said Saturday.

Jitendra and Raju, both natives of Dhaulpur district of Rajasthan, told the police that the consignment of 655 cartons containing 7,860 bottles, procured from Karnal in Haryana , was to be delivered in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, DIG Upendra Agarwal said.

At least 61 people died due to the consumption of spurious liquor in two adjoining districts in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. UP chief secretary Saturday directed the excise and police departments to conduct raids to check the manufacturing of hooch and stop smuggling of liquor in the state.

Agarwal said raw material used for making hooch was destroyed following raids by the police and excise teams in the Loni area here Saturday.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)