Thiruvananthapuram: Excise commissioner Rishi Raj Singh has written to Facebook to close down the FB group Glassile Nurayum Platile Curryum (GNPC), charging it with promoting sale and consumption of liquor in a large scale.
However, the attempts to nab the administrators of the GNPC have proved futile. The main admins – Thiruvananthapuram-based husband and wife T L Ajith Kumar and Vineetha – are absconding.
“At the time we discovered the page, there were two admins, and 36 moderators. Now only ten moderators are left, the rest seems to have exited,” the excise investigating official said on condition of anonymity.
The Excise Department suspects that at least half the moderators are Malayalis living outside Kerala, mostly in the Gulf. Excise officials have received information about three DJ parties conducted by the GNPC group in the Gulf.
The cyber cell is at work establishing the identity of the remaining 36 moderators,
Cyber cell sleuths are expected to hand over the results in two days. The excise team has picked 57 incriminating photographs from the GNPC page.
“From these photographs alone we have identified 15-20 people who are members of the group in all probability. We will proceed against them only after the cyber cell establishes the identities of the group admins,” the investigating officer said. It is said that top government officials, too, are part of the group.
These photographs are not casually taken, but carefully planned. “They have people sitting around plates filled with mouthwatering dishes, and clear crystal glasses filled with liquor, the foam filling over in some pictures. It is essentially intended to tempt people into consuming liquor,” the officer said.
The pictures, which the officer says are as catchy as liquor advertisements, seem to have worked. “Till two months ago, the group had just seven lakh members. By the time we stumbled upon the page last week, the membership had burgeoned to 18 lakh,” the officer said.
"They claim that it was a closed group, which means it requires the permission of a member for a new person to join. If this was so, how can this highly restricted group collect over 10 lakh members in just 60 days," he added.
What is considered graver is that some of these photographs have adults consuming liquor in the presence of children. “It almost looked like a liquor initiation ceremony, and the mood celebratory,” the officer said. A case has also been booked under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
There are weirder pictures, for instance of members having a booze party inside a graveyard, seated irreverently on the concrete slabs of graves.
There are also pictures done to mock Sree Narayana Guru's teachings against liquor.
The GNPC group began last May as a gourmet's gathering, dedicated to discussing about food and food outlets. Gradually, liquor came into the picture and soon enough booze became the sole preoccupation of the group.
“We found that they were not just promoting liquor but were also patronising certain liquor outlets, too,” the officer said.
Initially section 55(h) of the Kerala Abkari Act, which prohibits the advertisement of liquor brands, was slapped.
To make the case non-bailable, the accused have also been slapped section 55(i) of the Abkari Act. This section essentially dealt with the sale of liquor.
The excise officials charge GNPC members of having conducted a DJ party in the capital on May 28 to mark their first anniversary where liquor was sold at a premium using coupons.
Receipts of the sale, excise officials say, were recovered from the house of the admin couple at Karakkamandapam in the outskirts of the capital.
