Rats have been accused of going ‘bottoms-up’ on seized alcohol stocked in a police station’s warehouse in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. The cantonment police here have claimed that the rats have ‘consumed’ nearly 1,000 litres of it.
The incident came to light on Wednesday, 26 December, when the head clerk of the station entered the storeroom to find several empty plastic bottles of liquor, Police said he saw some damaged bottles and rats scurrying away from the crime scene.
A full scale investigation has been launched into the matter.
According to The Times of India, the liquor had been confiscated during raids on illegal stores over the course of a decade.
“We will catch this gang of rats to ensure that they are not able to enter the malkhana (storeroom) in the future”Superintendent of police (city) Abhinandan Singh
Singh also said that while it was standard procedure to ensure that confiscated liquor is destroyed after keeping a sample aside for legal purposes, he had written to the senior police officials several times before to complain about the violation of such law, but he got no response.
This is Not the First Crime Rats Have Been Accused of
Last year, police in Bihar claimed that rats had cleaned off nearly 9 lakh litres of liquor, confiscated from those breaking the Prohibition law.
It was also reported in June this year that rats had nibbled and destroyed currency worth Rs 12 lakh in Assam, mainly notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000.
A Bihar minister had also blamed rats for crumbling embankments and causing flooding in the state last year.
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