For months, Amarjit Yadav kept on informing the Bihar police about the thriving illegal liquor sales in his village, but to no avail. But when he arrived at the station with an alcohol bottle and his phone’s live recording feature, things took a turn for the worse.
Yadav’s story begins in his native village Motipur. Every time he would visit, he would complain about the ‘thriving illegal liquor sale’ in here, and alleged that the police always ‘looked the other way’.
But on Saturday, Yadav was ‘thrashed’ by police personnel after the man arrived at the Behara police station, in a desperate bid to highlight the issue.
To ‘expose’ Bihar police, he procured a liquor bottle in Motipur village and arrived at the station, all the while using Facebook’s Live feature, which lets users broadcast their activities live to their audiences. The police, he says, irked, ‘overpowered’ him and twelve personnel beat him in full public view.
While the police has now denied any such incident, a video of it is being circulated on social media, making users blame the Bihar police for ‘being hand-in-glove with the illegal liquor cartel.’
Bihar’s ‘Dry’ Journey
In November 2021, the government of Bihar had given the charge of prohibition and excise to senior IAS K.K. Pathak, who is considered to be a ‘no-nonsense officer’.
The 1990 Bihar cadre IAS had been on central deputation but was given the responsibility on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s insistence, ‘to obliterate the police-liquor cartel nexus’.
The government of Bihar has been under pressure to implement the prohibition law in letter and spirit but a series of ‘Hooch tragedies’ have put the government in a tight spot.
Police Calls Yadav’s Claims False
Darbhanga SSP Awkash Kumar, responding to the incident, has maintained that whistleblower Amarjit’s claim has been proved to be “inaccurate” as the person from whom he had supposedly purchased liquor (a Govind Yadav), has been found not guilty and let off after furnishing a personal bond.
The SSP also denied that Amarjit was beaten by local police but admitted that forced was used to to overpower him. However, the video doing rounds shows otherwise.
A Deep Problem to Fix
The state government has made it amply clear that local police stations would be responsible if there is an illegal sale of liquor in a particular area. However, that seems to be the reason why most of the cases are either being brushed under the carpet or not being reported.
There have been umpteen crackdowns on manufacturers, smugglers, and transporters to enforce prohibition.
And off late, liquor laws have been also diluted, and instead of directly sending the accused(s) to jail, they are given chance to rectify and reform.
After the Supreme court’s rap, the state government tinkered with existing law and lowered the penalty for the first time offender.
The executive magistrate will decide the penalty, in case of non-payment, the accused will be sent to one month’s prison.
Allegations
The principal opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal has alleged that government doesn’t want to destroy the parallel economy spread across the state, which is pegged at Rs 20,000 crores approximately, though, there is no official estimate to arrive at this figure.
In April 2016, the NDA Government led by Nitish Kumar enforced the stringent prohibition law in Bihar.
Ever since Bihar became a dry state, 125 people have died, of which 90 deaths took place 2021 alone. Districts where maximum deaths were reported are Gopalganj, West Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Nawada, Siwan, Vaishali, Kaimur, Begusarai and Rohtas.
A total of 49,900 cases have been registered in different districts of Bihar after conducting special raids under the State Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Act-2018 from January 2021 to October 2021 and a total of 38,72,645 litres of illicit liquor has been recovered and confiscated in the state. Over 3.60 lakh people have been arrested for violating the liquor law in Bihar so far.
The courts are overburdened too and under pressure to clear the backlogs related to violation of prohibition law.
Read all the Latest News India and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment