UP STF Arrests Ex-Minister’s Brother-in-law for Excise Duty, Tax Evasion

Uttar Pradesh’s Special Task Force (STF) has arrested Ashwani Upadhyay, the brother-in-law of former minister Amar Mani Tripathi, on charges of defrauding the government of crores by evading excise duty and tax on Friday evening.

The STF produced Upadhyay before the court which sent him to judicial custody till October 7.

With the arrest of Ashwani Upadhyay, the UP STF is claiming to bust the gang involved in defrauding the government of crores by evading excise duty and tax.

A senior officer of the UP Special Task Force told the media that Ashwani Upadhyay was arrested from Lucknow’s Kisan Path while he was on his way to visit former minister Amarmani Tripathi’s farmhouse.

Additional superintendent of police (ASP) of STF Vishal Vikram said, “We had intelligence inputs that Ashwani Upadhyay was hiding at his brother-in-law’s farmhouse located at Lucknow’s Kisan Path.”

The ASP further said that accordingly a team was formed and Ashwani Upadhyay was nabbed when he was returning to the farmhouse from somewhere.

According to another STF official, in March this year, the task force, with the help of the Liquor Factory Co-Operative Company Limited of Saharanpur officials and local excise distributor, transport owners and excise officials appointed in the factory, exposed a gang that defrauded the government of crores by extracting illicit liquor in huge quantities.

The ASP told the media that UP Special Task Force so far has arrested eight people of the gang involved in evasion of excise duty and tax.

Another STF official said that the company’s sales head and public relations officer Ashwini Upadhyay was evading excise duty and tax by producing forge documents.

The excise duty officials in their investigation had found that Ashwani used to get trucks round twice on a single gate pass within four days at a nearby distribution point. During the transaction of the trucks, CCTV cameras of the company and distribution point and GPS of the trucks were shut down.

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