An anti-liquor rally of Koraput district Congress led to a melee in Borigumma on Thursday with the participants suddenly running amok and destroying a distillery and looting its equipment.
A rally of thousands of women and common public led by Congress MlA Tara Bahinipati marched from Borigumma to old Borigumma. Bahinipati held a public meeting there where party workers and leaders from Jeypore and Borigumma blocks were present.
After the meeting, the people led by Bahinipati moved towards a country wine manufacturing unit where they were obstructed by police, suspecting trouble. But the mob didn’t respond to the police and rushed toward the distillery and dislodged its structure. The police applied maximum possible force to restrain the mob but in vain.
Then the mob destroyed the equipment that are used for distillation and also torched the raw materials. Some miscreants suspected to be outsiders looted the plastic drum used to store liquor and smashed a TV and other articles inside the staff room.
let alone police, even Bahinipati’s pleading to his supporters for maintaining peace failed to yield any result. “We are going to identify the persons involved in the incident and stringent action will be taken against them,” said Borigumma SDPO Udhhad Charan Nayak.
Meanwhile, Bahinipati denied the involvement of Congress workers in the incident.