Jigar Dungrani, all of 27, has done alright in life so far. He owns more than 60 acres of farmland. He hails from a political family — his father, Dharmesh, heads the Barwala taluka unit of the Congress, mother Ranjanben is the leader of Opposition in the taluka panchayat. The young Patel himself is the sarpanch of Rojid village, 126 km away from Ahmedabad, on the highway to Bhavnagar. But Dungrani is going around with an incensed look these days. Rojid, a settlement of 3,500-odd people, is among the villages dotting Botad and Ahmedabad districts where an avoidable tragedy is unfolding. Twelve people have died here after drinking countrymade liquor or hooch laced with chemicals on the evening of July 25; the overall toll in half-a-dozen villages of rural Ahmedabad and Botad districts is 45 dead and counting; over 75 are still battling for their lives in various hospitals in Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar.
In March this year, in a letter to the local police, Dungrani had warned about the easy access to liquor in the village. “I had repeatedly made representations to the police and revenue authorities about bootleggers having a free run of the village,” he said. Every time, the police would conduct a raid on bootleggers or local breweries.
Editorial | Death by hooch: On the spurious liquour tragedy in dry Gujarat
