With authorities busy in controlling deaths in the second Covid wave and implementing government orders in restricting public movement, kingpins involved in the sale of spurious liquor seem to be making merry albeit at the cost of people’s lives. They have accounted for over 150 deaths in over a dozen hooch tragedy cases since January this year. Bootleggers also enjoyed a boom in sales after government shops closed down due to the lockdown.
The recent panchayat elections across the state further lined up the bootleggers’ purses and the maximum numbers of hooch tragedies were reported after the first fortnight of March.Surprisingly, the government action was confined to mere suspension of few local officers and setting up the never-ending probes which only bolstered the major runners of the spurious liquor racket. Every such tragedy left a morbid trail of agony and desperation for numerous families and was invariably followed by directionless activities by government agencies and officials which could not stem the rot in the system.
A few weeks later, it was business as usual and the bills raked in for the liquor mafia, who usually shifted their operations to a nearby district. Additional Chief Secretary, Excise, Sanjay Bhoosreddy vehemently tried to water down the number of deaths in hooch tragedies this year and claimed that the government was taking stern action against liquor smugglers and had even imposed National Security Act (NSA) against them through special drives carried out from time to time to check the manufacture and sale of spurious liquor in the state.
In March after several hooch tragedy cases were reported, the chief minister expressed concern over the sale of spurious liquor and warned officials of stern action if similar incidents continued to happen. He directed the DGP and Excise department top brass to form enforcement teams in each district to launch a crackdown on those involved in manufacture or sale of spurious liquor. The Excise department also released a toll-free number (18001805331 and WhatsApp number 9454466019) and appealed to the citizens to immediately inform the officials if anyone was found supplying or engaging in sale of spurious liquor in Uttar Pradesh. However, incidents of hooch deaths continued to pour in from across the state. Scanning hooch tragedies occurring with disturbing frequency since January this year, one could easily unravel that over a dozen similar tragedies and consequent deaths in different parts, either went unnoticed or were concealed by district authorities to avert a media deluge and subsequent government reprimand or action. On January 8, five persons were killed in the first hooch tragedy at Bulandshahr. The next month, on February 26, five more fell victim to spurious liquor in Mahoba. In Prayagraj, 13 persons were died after consuming spurious liquor on March 17 followed by 4 deaths in Fatehpur, 7 deaths in Chitrakoot on March 22, 6 deaths in Pratapgarh and 2 in Ayodhya on April 1, 2 casualties in Badaun on April 2, 5 in Hathras on April 28, 18 in Azamgarh on May 12, 16 in Ambedkarnagar on May 12, 2 in Badaun also on May 12, and recently 50 in Aligarh which was conservatively put at 25 by the local authorities.