A War Thousands of Kilometres Away Is Shutting Down Bhopal's Kitchens

When a conflict escalates in the Middle East, the last thing a hotel owner in Bhopal expects is to find his gas rack empty. But that is exactly what is happening right now — and it is not just Bhopal. The commercial LPG cylinder supply crisis triggered by the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict has hit hotels, restaurants, dhabas, and marriage garden caterers across Madhya Pradesh with sudden and severe force.

Commercial LPG cylinder distribution has been temporarily stopped in Bhopal, with exemptions made only for hospitals and educational institutions. The decision is directly linked to the escalating geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, which has disrupted global energy supply chains. Amar Ujala

What Exactly Changed — and When

National Vice President of the LPG Association, R.K. Gupta, confirmed that commercial cylinders have not been issued since March 9. The next booking for LPG cylinders will now be allowed only after 25 days from the date of the previous delivery — up from the earlier norm of 21 days. Amar Ujala

In practical terms, this means restaurants and caterers who had already exhausted their gas stock before this rule change found themselves with no legal way to reorder. The new timeline arrived without warning, and businesses caught between the old cycle and the new rule are the ones suffering most.

The commercial LPG cylinder price in Bhopal has also risen sharply. A 19 kg commercial cylinder now costs ₹1,889 — up from ₹1,745 last month — a jump of ₹144 in a single revision. Organiser Weekly Combined with the supply freeze, businesses are absorbing both a price shock and an availability shock simultaneously.

Wedding Season Caught in the Crossfire

The timing could not be worse. March is peak wedding and events season across India. Marriage gardens, outdoor caterers, hotel banquets, and community kitchen operators depend on this month for a significant share of their annual income.

In Madhya Pradesh, around 2,000 hotels face the threat of closure as commercial gas cylinder supply has been halted and domestic LPG rules are also being tightened. News9live

Caterers managing large outdoor functions are reportedly scrambling to arrange alternatives — induction cooktops, firewood, or kerosene. None of these options scale efficiently for feeding hundreds of wedding guests, and all of them add unexpected cost to contracts that were signed weeks or months ago at fixed prices.

The Nationwide Scale of the Crisis

Bhopal's situation mirrors a broader national emergency.

An acute shortage of 19-kg commercial LPG cylinders has forced hotels and restaurants in cities such as Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru to trim menus, delay opening hours and in some cases face the prospect of temporary closures. In Tamil Nadu, restaurant associations have warned that establishments in Madurai may be forced to shut down for days if the situation is not addressed. The Mooknayak

In Mumbai, popular live counters serving pav bhaji and dosa have been shut as these dishes require large amounts of LPG. Restaurant staff say they are being forced to temporarily switch to induction stoves and coal-based cooking to continue operations. DNP INDIA

In Kerala, major public sector undertakings including Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum have ceased refilling commercial cylinders entirely, with Hindustan Petroleum maintaining only minimal supply. Industry bodies estimate that around 70 per cent of all restaurants and hotels in the state could shut their doors within days if relief does not come. ThePrint

Black markets have emerged in response. Complaints have surfaced of private agencies selling cylinders at double the official market price, with prices reportedly rising from ₹80 per kg to between ₹130 and ₹140 per kg in under two weeks. ThePrint

What Is the Government Doing?

The political response has been significant but contested.

Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri told Parliament that there is no scarcity of petrol and diesel in India, that 100 per cent CNG supply is being ensured, and that crude oil is being imported from 40 countries. He also said LPG production has increased in the last five days. LatestLY

The government has formed a three-member committee to address grievances and prioritise domestic LPG supply. India has also increased imports of gas from non-Strait of Hormuz sources — from 55 per cent to 70 per cent — while all refineries are reportedly running at 100 per cent capacity with LPG production boosted by 10 per cent. Officials say India has stocks sufficient for at least 12 to 16 weeks. Amar Ujala

However, Opposition leaders in Parliament have pushed back forcefully, with Congress's Rahul Gandhi stating the LPG crisis is just the beginning of the hardship to come, and pointing out that black marketing has already taken root while the government denies there is a problem. LatestLY

The gap between official reassurance and ground reality is stark. Distributors say cylinders are unavailable. Oil companies say supply is adequate. And hotel owners in Bhopal, Chennai, and Bengaluru are the ones caught in the middle.

What Should Bhopal's Hotel and Catering Industry Do Right Now?

• Contact your LPG distributor immediately to place your next booking and document the date of your last delivery — your 25-day window starts from there
• Explore induction cooktops as a temporary bridge for smaller kitchen operations
• Coordinate with your local hotel or trade association — collective industry pressure accelerates government response
• Avoid panic buying or grey market purchases — it deepens the shortage for everyone and carries legal risk
• Renegotiate wedding and catering contracts with clients if fuel costs have increased — document everything in writing

Bottom Line: A Global War, A Local Crisis

The Iran-Israel conflict may feel like a distant headline. In Bhopal's restaurant kitchens and wedding mandaps, it is a daily, practical emergency. The crisis has exposed how thin the buffer is between global geopolitical disruption and the daily livelihoods of India's food service industry — the dhaba owner, the wedding caterer, the neighbourhood restaurant that feeds thousands every morning. The Mooknayak

The government has the tools to fix this — boosted production, diversified imports, a ministerial committee. The question is whether these mechanisms move fast enough before wedding buffets go cold and restaurant shutters come down permanently.

Bhopal Wanted a Metro. Jawahar Chowk's Traders Are Paying For It With Everything They Own.

There is a version of the Bhopal Metro story that looks beautiful on paper. A ₹6,941 crore infrastructure project. Funded by the Asian Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. Twenty-eight stations across two corridors. A Blue Line running through the city's commercial heart — through Bhadbhada Chauraha, Depot Chauraha, and straight through Jawahar Chowk. Phase 1 completion targeted for 2026. A modern city transforming itself for the future.

And then there is the version playing out on the ground at Jawahar Chowk in March 2026 — where intensified Blue Line construction work has caused structural damage to adjacent shops, where walls have cracked and portions have collapsed under the vibration and excavation pressure of heavy metro construction equipment, and where traders who have been fighting for their livelihoods for years are watching what little remains of their businesses literally fall apart.

This is that version.

What Is Happening at Jawahar Chowk Right Now

Construction activity on the Bhopal Metro Blue Line has intensified significantly at Jawahar Chowk, Roshanpura, Kushabhau Thackeray Hall, Lal Parade Ground and Pul Bogda — with the Blue Line corridor passing directly through several of Bhopal's highest-density commercial zones. Wionews

The intensified construction activity — pile driving, excavation, foundation work for the elevated metro station structure — generates significant ground vibration and structural stress on adjacent buildings. In Jawahar Chowk, where many of the commercial structures are decades old and were never designed to withstand the sustained vibration loads of metro construction, the results have been predictable and devastating.

Shops that were standing last month have developed structural cracks. Portions of buildings adjacent to the construction corridor have collapsed or been declared unsafe. Traders who had already been fighting the MPMRCL and Smart City Company for years over rehabilitation promises now face an additional threat: even the shops they managed to hold onto are being damaged by the construction they were never adequately warned about.

The Backstory: Three Years of Broken Promises

The crisis at Jawahar Chowk did not begin this week. It has been building for years — and the timeline of failed rehabilitation promises is essential context for understanding why traders are so furious today.

There are 900 traders whose shops had to be removed due to the Smart City and metro project. Many times, they protested and raised the issue before the concerned authority. But nothing happened. According to traders, officials of the Smart City Company had promised to allot them shops on Plot No 47-49 in the vicinity of Katju Hospital. A decision in this respect was taken by the board. "Now the officers say go to 'haat' market. This is absolutely breach of contract," they alleged. The traders said a cash of ₹25,000 has been given to them in lieu of shops. Military.com

Twenty-five thousand rupees. For a shop that may have been a family's primary income source for generations. In a city where a monthly rent for a commercial space in a comparable location would comfortably exceed that amount.

The earlier rehabilitation attempt was no better. Around four years ago, 150 traders of Jawahar Chowk were shifted and allotted shops near TT Nagar stadium. But most of the traders sold off their outlets as it was way beyond their budget. Now, the traders who once owned a shop and kiosks have turned into street vendors running business on handcarts. Al Jazeera

Street vendors on handcarts. That is what happened to the first wave of displaced Jawahar Chowk traders after MPMRCL and the Smart City Company finished with them. They went from shop owners to footpath sellers. And now a second wave of damage — construction-related structural collapse — is threatening to complete the destruction of what the first wave started.

The Scale of Demolition: What the Metro Is Consuming

To understand the full scope of what is happening, you need to understand how much of Jawahar Chowk and its surroundings the metro project is consuming.

Over 200 old houses and shops in and around the Pul Bogda area — which will serve as the interchange junction for the Blue and Orange metro lines — will be demolished as part of the construction. Preliminary work has begun, and the area has been closed off; however, work cannot fully commence until the land is cleared. Experts estimate that if work begins now, the three-tier junction will take two years to complete. The project involves clearing the land at Pul Bogda by removing 230 structures for the Blue and Orange lines. Windward

Two hundred and thirty structures. In a densely commercial area. And that is just the Pul Bogda interchange — the Blue Line's passage through Jawahar Chowk creates an additional wave of impact across the adjacent commercial zones.

A total of 40 shops were demolished as part of an earlier operation near Bhopal Railway Station for the Orange Line's underground station construction, with ₹1.23 crore in compensation paid out four months in advance. NBC News MPMRCL claimed that this was done "with consent and in an amicable manner" with six months advance notice. The traders of Jawahar Chowk tell a different story about what adequate notice and fair compensation look like in practice.

The Compensation Crisis: ₹25,000 vs. a Lifetime of Business

The most damaging gap in this entire story is not the construction damage. It is the compensation arithmetic.

Nearly 225 shop owners demonstrated demanding that authorities chalk out a detailed plan about the location where they would be allotted new shops and their price. The shops coming in the way of the metro rail development and Smart City are to be dismantled but the traders demanded that before their shops were razed, the authorities should share details of the new outlets they would be allotted. The traders were apprehensive about whether the new location would have potential market for their business and whether the shops allotted would be reasonably priced. Al Jazeera

These are not unreasonable demands. They are the minimum any government owes a business owner it is forcibly displacing in the public interest. A new shop in a location with no existing customer base, priced beyond what the displaced trader can afford, is not rehabilitation. It is relocation without recovery — and Bhopal's track record, with the TT Nagar stadium example, shows exactly what that looks like in practice.

The Blue Line land acquisition notification offers compensation at double the prevailing Collector Guideline rates, with landowners given 60 days to submit claims or objections. Wionews Double the Collector Guideline rate sounds generous until you understand that Collector Guideline rates in most Indian cities are set well below actual market value — making "double the guideline rate" still significantly below what a trader would need to re-establish a comparable business in a comparable location.

What MPMRCL Is — And Is Not — Doing

The Madhya Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation Limited is not a villain in this story. It is an infrastructure agency executing a project that Bhopal genuinely needs — a project that will, when complete, improve the daily commute of hundreds of thousands of people and reduce the city's traffic-induced paralysis.

But infrastructure agencies have obligations that extend beyond construction timelines and budget management. When their construction activities cause structural damage to adjacent private properties — damage that the affected owners did not consent to and could not have prevented — the agency has a legal and moral obligation to assess, acknowledge, and compensate that damage promptly and fairly.

The acquisition process for the Blue Line covers a combination of private and government properties, including parts of Laxmi Ganj Mandi, Bone Mill area and drainage infrastructure. The Washington Post The administrative machinery for acquisition and compensation exists. The question being asked by Jawahar Chowk's traders is why that machinery moves so slowly, and why its outputs are so consistently inadequate, when the people bearing the burden are small shopkeepers rather than large landowners.

The Broader Pattern: How Indian Cities Build Metros at the Expense of the Poor

Bhopal's Jawahar Chowk crisis is not unique. It is the Indian urban infrastructure story told in miniature — and it repeats itself with near-identical mechanics in every city where a metro is built through an existing commercial zone.

The pattern is consistent: a large infrastructure project displaces small traders, offers inadequate compensation through a process they cannot effectively contest, relocates them to areas without equivalent market potential, and then moves on to the next phase of construction while the displaced traders quietly descend from shopkeepers to street vendors to economic invisibility.

The metro, when it opens, will carry millions of passengers past the ghost of Jawahar Chowk's commercial life. Most of those passengers will not know what stood there before. Most will not know who paid the human cost of building the infrastructure that moves them efficiently from Bhadbhada to Ratnagiri Tiraha.

The 900 traders of Jawahar Chowk know. They are living it.

What Must Happen Now

The immediate priority is structural safety assessment. Every building adjacent to the active Blue Line construction corridor at Jawahar Chowk must be surveyed by a certified structural engineer within 72 hours. Buildings showing distress must be assessed for habitability, and traders must be formally notified of risks to their persons and property — not discovered through collapse.

The medium-term priority is genuine rehabilitation — not relocation. MPMRCL and the Bhopal Smart City Company must honour the Katju Hospital plot promise in full, with shops allocated at prices that reflect the market value of what traders are losing, in locations with proven commercial viability.

Rakesh Gupta, President of the Adarsh Jawahar Chowk Traders Association, has been raising this issue for years through protests, meetings, and formal complaints. Military.com He and the 900 traders he represents deserve answers — not more assurances, not more deadlines that pass without action, and not ₹25,000 cheques issued in lieu of a lifetime of investment.

The Bottom Line

Bhopal's metro will transform this city. The Blue Line's Jawahar Chowk station will, one day, be a hub that connects citizens to their offices, their hospitals, and their families faster and more reliably than anything that exists today.

But the day that station opens, it should carry a plaque. Not a commemorative one — an honest one. One that acknowledges that the land beneath the tracks, and the space around the platforms, was occupied by 900 shops and the families that depended on them. That those families were displaced with promises that were not kept and compensation that was not adequate. That some of their shops, in the final weeks of construction, fell down around them.

That is the price Jawahar Chowk paid for Bhopal's metro. The least this city owes its traders is to acknowledge it — and to finally make it right.

Eighty days after a truck was intercepted on the streets of Bhopal carrying what turned out to be 26 tonnes of banned cow meat, the Special Investigation Team probing the case has confirmed its challan — the formal chargesheet — against the accused. It is a significant procedural milestone in one of the most politically explosive criminal cases in Madhya Pradesh in recent years.

The SIT's challan confirmation means the case against slaughterhouse operator Aslam Qureshi alias Aslam Chamda, container driver Shoaib, and their associates is now formally before the court. The evidence collected — forensic reports, CCTV footage, statements from BMC staff, financial records — has been compiled into a legal document that will determine whether this case results in convictions or becomes yet another high-profile scandal that the system quietly lets dissolve.

Given what has emerged in the course of the investigation, that question matters enormously. Because the Bhopal cow meat case is not simply about a container of banned meat. It is about a 35-year-old operator with documented political and official connections who ran an illegal enterprise with apparent impunity. It is about a Municipal Corporation that, as far back as May 2025, found that all of Aslam Qureshi's documents were fake — and registered no FIR. It is about a Van Vihar National Park that continued accepting meat supplies on those same fake licences even after being told they were fake. And it is about 85 workers who have since scattered to their home states, making the SIT's job considerably harder.

The Night It All Began: December 17, 2025

It began with an interception, not a police operation.

On the night of December 17, 2025, Hindu organisation activists led by Chandrashekhar Tiwari of Hindu Utsav Samiti and activist Bhanu Hindu intercepted a container bearing a Meerut registration number near the Bhopal Police Headquarters, in the jurisdiction of Jahangirabad police station. The activists alleged the container was transporting cow meat and claimed it was being supplied from a slaughterhouse to different parts of the country and even abroad.

Police arrived at the scene, seized the container, and took the contents for examination. The seized consignment weighed approximately 26.5 tonnes — 26,500 kilograms of packaged meat.

Samples were collected by veterinary officials from the State Veterinary Hospital in Jahangirabad and sent to the Veterinary College Forensic Laboratory in Mathura for analysis. The Mathura FSL is one of the few laboratories in India with the equipment and expertise to definitively identify the species of animal from meat samples.

January 8, 2026: The Forensic Confirmation

Three weeks after the interception, the Mathura FSL report arrived. It was unambiguous: the samples belonged to cow or its progeny. The meat was banned under the Madhya Pradesh Cow Slaughter Prohibition Act, 2004.

The same day — January 8 — Bhopal Municipal Corporation sealed the Jinsi Crossing slaughterhouse, which the investigation had traced as the source of the consignment. The facility was operated by Livestock Food Processors Private Limited, the company of Aslam Qureshi alias Aslam Chamda. Sealing took place in the presence of a large number of Hindu organisation activists, who had gathered demanding immediate action.

Police registered an FIR against Aslam Qureshi, container driver Shoaib (a Meerut resident), and one other person under Sections 4, 5 and 9 of the MP Cow Slaughter Prohibition Act, 2004, and Section 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Critically, a certificate had also surfaced on social media on January 9 — a document issued by Aslam's firm Livestock Private Limited, signed by the firm's veterinarian Dr. Anaum Khan after examination, certifying the intercepted goods as "inspected, fit for transport, hygienic, and safe for human consumption." It also certified that ante-mortem and post-mortem examinations were conducted. The certificate raised an obvious question: how does a certificate clearing the meat as safe coexist with a forensic confirmation that it was banned?

January 9–10: Arrests, Jail, and the BMC Scandal Deepens

The day after the slaughterhouse was sealed, Jahangirabad police sent Aslam Qureshi and container driver Shoaib to jail. Police confirmed that more names could surface as the supply chain investigation continued. A police official noted pointedly: meat processing cannot occur without routine inspection and certification by municipal veterinary officials, meaning that if banned meat was processed at this facility, it pointed to either serious negligence or active complicity by BMC staff.

That observation proved accurate. Bhopal Municipal Corporation suspended nine officials including veterinarian Dr. Beni Prasad Gaur and eight regular staffers, while issuing notices to three temporary workers. The BMC Council, under President Kishan Suryavanshi, then went further: it unanimously voted to permanently close the facility, declaring that "Bhopal Nagar Nigam will no longer conduct animal slaughter; the slaughterhouse stands permanently shut."

Bhopal MP Alok Sharma was direct about what the slaughterhouse's operation implied: "This would not have been possible without the collusion of local police and municipal corporation employees."

The CCTV Problem: No Cow Seen Inside the Facility

Among the most important — and most troubling — findings of the initial investigation was this: when police examined the CCTV footage from inside the slaughterhouse, no cow was seen being brought in or slaughtered on the premises.

This did not mean the forensic finding was wrong. The Mathura FSL had confirmed cow meat in the samples. But it did mean the cow slaughter may not have happened inside the Jinsi slaughterhouse. Police began to suspect that the banned meat may have been procured from outside and mixed with buffalo meat for packaging and supply — that the Jinsi facility was not a slaughter point but a packaging and distribution point in a larger supply chain.

This was a significant investigative complication. It shifted the inquiry from a relatively straightforward slaughterhouse case to a supply chain investigation spanning potentially multiple locations and operators.

January 19, 2026: SIT Formation

Given the scale and sensitivity of the case, a Special Investigation Team was constituted on January 19, 2026, headed by ACP Umesh Tiwari. The SIT was tasked with conducting a detailed inquiry into the alleged supply of banned meat from the BMC slaughterhouse, including tracing the full supply network, identifying all persons involved, and establishing the source of the cow meat.

The SIT's immediate priorities were: questioning key persons at the facility, examining financial records, tracing the supply chain, and verifying the documentary and CCTV evidence.

The 85-Worker Problem: A Vanishing Workforce

One of the SIT's most acute challenges was one it did not expect to face: the workforce had vanished. Approximately 85 workers including labourers engaged in slaughtering, meat packaging, supervisors and higher-level employees worked at the facility. While some were local residents, the majority belonged to other states. After the slaughterhouse was sealed, most returned to their native places.

Officials said tracing these workers had become a major hurdle as many were untraceable and some were suspected to be absconding. The SIT believed that questioning the workers was crucial to establish the source of the banned meat.

This is a significant accountability failure — not by the SIT, but by the system that allowed a BMC-contracted facility to employ a migrant workforce of 85 people with no mechanism for tracking their whereabouts after a criminal case was registered. In a properly functioning regulatory system, a concession agreement with a municipal contractor would include provisions for employee registration. It did not.

The Van Vihar and Fake Licence Dimension

The case expanded further in February 2026. A probe by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation had unearthed that all documents of Aslam Qureshi's slaughterhouse were fake — a fact established as far back as May 5, 2025. Despite this, no FIR was registered, allegedly due to collusion among officials.

More alarming: the fake-document finding did not stop Van Vihar National Park from continuing to accept meat supplies from the same operator. The PCCF (Wildlife) pointed out that meat supplied to Van Vihar was being procured using licences already declared fake, and Van Vihar authorities allegedly failed to initiate any action. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Subharanjan Sen issued a formal notice to Van Vihar seeking immediate explanation.

This dimension of the case — a protected national park accepting supplies from an operator whose fake documents had been identified eight months earlier — points to a level of systemic complicity that goes well beyond a single rogue contractor.

Who Is Aslam Qureshi — Alias "Chamda"?

Aslam Qureshi's ascent was gradual, rooted in the animal hide trade, before expanding into slaughterhouse operations and high-value property investments. According to police findings and statements from associates, he began around 1988, purchasing buffalo hides from villages across Sehore, Vidisha, Raisen and Ashta.

From this origin in the hide trade — "Chamda" literally means leather/hide — Aslam built what investigators describe as a significant economic empire, ultimately securing the contract to operate Bhopal's municipal slaughterhouse. He is alleged to have operated and controlled the slaughterhouse for nearly 20 years, reportedly aided by patronage from regional leaders and officials, which helped him repeatedly secure government contracts. Besides slaughterhouse contracts, he allegedly supplied meat to Van Vihar and ran a facility involved in poultry feed production.

The case also revived a controversy from three years earlier, when carcasses were found dumped near a gaushala on the Bhopal outskirts — and the contractor responsible was also Aslam Qureshi. He had handled carcass disposal in the city for close to three decades without disruption.

Even after the BMC slaughterhouse was sealed, Qureshi's influence is said to persist. The land opposite the slaughterhouse, allotted for a Metro rail project, remains under his aides' control. Sources claim buffaloes are being kept there and suspicious activities continue.

What the SIT Challan Must Establish

The confirmation of the SIT challan means the prosecution's case is now formally before the court. But the challan's strength will depend on how satisfactorily the SIT has resolved several outstanding evidentiary challenges:

1. The source of the cow meat. If no cow was slaughtered inside the Jinsi facility, where did the banned meat come from? The SIT's theory — that it was brought from outside and mixed with buffalo meat — must be backed by documentary or testimonial evidence tracing the supply chain.

2. The role of Dr. Anaum Khan. The firm's internal veterinarian who certified the consignment as fit and safe. Her certification, if granted knowingly for banned meat, constitutes criminal complicity.

3. The 85 missing workers. Without testimony from slaughterhouse workers, establishing what actually happened inside the facility is difficult. Whether the SIT has managed to record even a portion of these statements will significantly affect the chargesheet's strength.

4. The BMC officials. The veterinarian Dr. Beni Prasad Gaur and eight suspended staffers. Suspension is an administrative action. The challan must specify what criminal charges, if any, are being framed against BMC employees.

5. The fake-document cover-up. The finding that Aslam's documents were known to be fake since May 2025 — and no FIR was filed — is potentially the most explosive aspect of the entire case. Who in the BMC and police administration suppressed that finding?

Key Takeaways

• On December 17, 2025, Bajrang Dal activists intercepted a Meerut-registered container near Bhopal PHQ; the seized consignment weighed 26.5 tonnes of packaged meat.
• Mathura FSL confirmed on January 8, 2026 that the samples belonged to cow or its progeny — banned under MP Cow Slaughter Prohibition Act, 2004.
• BMC sealed the Jinsi slaughterhouse on January 8; Aslam Qureshi alias Chamda and driver Shoaib were sent to jail on January 10.
• BMC suspended 9 officials including veterinarian Dr. Beni Prasad Gaur and permanently shut the slaughterhouse on January 13-14.
• SIT formed on January 19, 2026, headed by ACP Umesh Tiwari.
• CCTV footage showed no cow being slaughtered on premises; police suspect banned meat was sourced externally and mixed with buffalo meat.
• 85 workers employed at the facility have largely fled to their home states, making the investigation significantly harder.
• BMC probe found all of Aslam Qureshi's documents were fake — known since May 5, 2025 — but no FIR was registered then, indicating official collusion.
• Van Vihar National Park continued accepting meat supplies on fake licences; PCCF issued formal notice seeking explanation.
• SIT has now confirmed its challan; the matter is formally before court approximately 80 days after the original interception.