One day after busting a shop selling counterfeit jeans of reputed companies like Levi’s and Calvin Klein in Bolangir, the police swung into action and conducted raids at the house of a staff of the shop at Khaliapali on the outskirts of Bolangir city on Thursday.
A team from Bolangir Police Station today carried out raids at the house of Gopal Biswal, a staff who works at the shop that was reportedly selling duplicate jeans of branded companies, and seized a packaging machine and stickers of reputed companies. The house was being used as a godown to store such counterfeit garments.
When asked, Biswal denied the charges. “My house was being used for packaging and storing clothes for two to three years. But we were not selling any duplicate materials of any company.”
Sources said that an official of a Mumbai-based company had lodged a complaint with the police yesterday in connection with the sale of duplicate clothes. Acting on the complaint, the police raided a shop named Lakhani New Garments and arrested its owner Rajesh Kumar Lakhani. By selling clothes at a low price, Lakhani was also allegedly avoiding GST payments.
An employee of the Mumbai-based company, Dipesh Gupta expressed satisfaction after police action.
“Our company had information that a shop named Lakhani Shop in Bolangir was selling duplicate jeans of three of our client companies. Then we lodged a complaint with the Bolangir Police. The police took the complaint seriously and conducted raids at the shop and clothes having stickers of the brands of our company were found there,” Gupta said.