A youth who was arrested for consuming liquor in dry Bihar was found dead inside the State prohibition department police lock-up on Friday in Munger district of Bihar. Bihar was declared a dry State in April 2016.
The deceased has been identified as Aman, 22, from the Bageshwari area of Munger. He was arrested for liquor consumption on December 7 by State Prohibition, Excise and Registration department personnel and was kept in the department’s lock-up along with some other accused persons. His body was found hanging from the ventilator of the toilet attached to the lock-up of the Prohibition department police station early on Friday.
“Aman was found hanging in the toilet attached to the lock-up around 2 a.m. on Friday. He was immediately taken to the district government hospital but was declared dead. Further investigation is on,” Excise and Prohibition department official Suman Kumar said. Trade, consumption and manufacturing of liquor are completely banned in the State since April 5, 2016 under the new State Prohibition and Excise (Amendment), 2016 Act.
Despite the ban, illegal liquor bottles have been funnelled into Bihar through neighbouring States like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and sometimes, even from crossing the porous border of neighbouring country Nepal. Illicit traders have been using innovative ways to funnel liquor into the State by using ambulances, hearses, cooking cylinders, vegetable shacks in pick-up vans and in pantry cars coaches of trains. Over 250 people, mostly poor, have died since the ban after consuming illicit liquor in the State.
Regular raids
Though police personnel and State Prohibition and Excise department officials have been conducting regular raids using drones, breath analysers and setting up more check posts with personnel holding hand-held scanners on inter-State borders, there has been no let-up in the illegal supply of liquor. Over six lakh cases related to violation of provisions of new State Excise and Prohibition law have been registered while over 10 lakh people were arrested under the new law but the conviction rate in such cases has been very low with over 22%. Over 1.6 crore litres of illegal liquor — both Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and country-made — have been seized since April 2016. As many as 74 special courts (Excise) have been made functional and hundreds of policemen and Excise and Prohibition department personnel have been caught and suspended for violating the prohibition law provisions.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has often been reiterating that “piyoge to maroge (if you drink liquor, you’ll die), at a function organised on nashi-mukti diwas (De-addiction day) on November 26 in Patna recently, announced that there would be a fresh “house-to-house” survey on the impact of liquor prohibition in Bihar. Earlier in 2018 and 2023, surveys have been done which said over 1.5 crore people in the State have quit drinking alcohol due to prohibition and 99% women and 92% men are in favour of Bihar being declared a dry State.
