Bootleggers start a new life... with milk, veggies
NEWDELHI: Regular visitors to Heera Devi’s home in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar were in for a surprise when they knocked on her door on Monday night. They were looking for country liquor, but the 43-year-old woman, a bootlegger in Delhi’s biggest unauthorised colony, offered them milk packets instead.
A handwritten note pasted on the front gate of her house cleared the confusion. “Yahan ab sharaab nahi milti hai. Sirf doodh bikta hai. Kripya sharaab na maangein” (Alcohol is not sold here any more. Only milk is available Please don’t ask for alcohol),” it said.
The change of heart and business was the result of a “pledge” that Heera Devi had taken earlier in the day. She was among 51 alleged boot- leggers from the locality who were encouraged by the local police to quit selling illegal liquor and choose a legal business. Within 24 hours, most of them had put up similar notes outside their homes.
Three such women have started selling milk and cottage cheese. Some others are planning to sell vegetables, open grocery shops, or start tent-house businesses. On Tuesday morning, Heera Devi’s husband Braj Mohan left for his home town near Rajasthan’s Bharatpur to check the feasibility of setting up an eatery there.
According to records in the Sangam Vihar police station, these 51 people are among the 56 most notorious bootleggers who operated in the neighbourhood, which has been a hub for bootlegging country liquor in the national Capital.