Seized vehicles left to rust at excise office in Vadakara, Kozhikode

Vadakara: Even as the Excise Department has begun raking in lakhs of rupees through the auctioning of vehicles seized in narcotics cases, over 50 vehicles under the Vadakara Excise Range and Circle offices continue to be left to rot. With no proper space to store them, the vehicles have been dumped in different parts of the Civil Station premises.

Among the seized collection, which also includes three trucks, the majority are motorcycles. Most of the vehicles caught at Vadakara are related to cases of smuggling liquor from Mahe. However, with the long delays in settling cases and auctioning off vehicles linked to such offences, many of them, which are several years old, now lie abandoned.

The Revenue Department, meanwhile, has raised a demand to shift the trucks from the premises of the Old Taluk Office. With no adequate storage space, the remaining vehicles have been piled up one over another in different rows, leaving nearly half of them completely unusable.