DEATH TOLL MOUNTS TO 70
Village heads told to sensitise people against sale of hooch
UMAHI( SAHARANPUR): The death toll in the spurious liquor tragedy that hit three districts in UP and Uttarakhand rose to 70 on Saturday, with more people dying of the hooch they drank in Haridwar, Saharanpur and Kushinagar, officials said. However, agency reports have put the death toll much higher. Twenty-four of the victims died in Balupur and its neighbouring villages in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, an official said. Nine people were reported dead in Kushinagar and 37 in Saharanpur, according to official reports.
UMAHI( SAHARANPUR): The death toll in the spurious liquor tragedy that hit three districts in UP and Uttarakhand rose to 70 on Saturday, with more people dying of the hooch they drank in Haridwar, Saharanpur and Kushinagar, officials said.
However, agency reports have put the death toll much higher.
Twenty-four of the victims died in Balupur and its neighbouring villages in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, an official said. Nine people were reported dead in Kushinagar and 37 in Saharanpur, according to official reports.
Luckily, a downpour on Thursday night prevented possibility of more deaths as people were unable to venture out and buy the illicit liquor.
Villagers of Umahi claimed that sale of hooch was quite common in the region and bootleggers had a wide network. They alleged that one Pintu dalit was the main supplier of hooch in and
around the village.
Gram pradhan Musarrat Jahan and her husband Mumtaz Ali claimed that being a cancer patient, Pintu dalit found hooch sale a lucrative business to provide for his family.
Ali and other villagers claimed that many times Pintu’s father Balram was asked to stop him from selling spurious liquor but in vain. Even police complaints yielded no result. His business grew and many people of the neighbouring Bhalaswa village, like brick kiln labourers and dhabawalas, became his regular
clients.
The villagers said Pintu received supply from nearby Balupur village in Uttarakhand on Thursday evening and sold it to his clients in the Umahi village. However, bad weather on Thursday evening prevented many of his clients from buying it, else the death toll might have gone up drastically.
Kapil Dabur, president of Nagal Vyapar Mandal, claimed that bootlegging was like a cottage industry in the region and the police were hand in glove with hooch sellers..
Meanwhile, Saharanpur SSP Dinesh Kumar has suspended inspector of Nagal police station Harish Rajput, three sub inspectors and six constables for negligence in duty.
Commissioner of Saharanour division Chandra Prakash Tripathi, while addressing a gathering of village pradhans of the area, appealed to them to convince people in their villages to destroy spurious liquor if any of them still had it. He also asked them to sensitise people against sale of hooch and to report them.