Agra liquor deaths: Top police, admn officials visit villages

Additional director general (ADG) of police, Agra zone and commissioner Agra division, along with other senior police and administrative officers visited villages where 10 deaths occurred in two days allegedly due to liquor consumption.

Statements of family members were recorded and directions given to expedite reports of forensic science lab to assign exact reason to the deaths.

ADG Agra zone Rajeev Krishna, commissioner Amit Gupta, inspector general (Agra range) Naveen Arora, district magistrate Prabhu N Singh and SSP Agra Muniraj G visited the two villages where villagers alleged that in all ten people had died after consuming liquor. The district administration and police had initially not accepted that the deaths were due to spurious liquor.

“We are not ruling out deaths because of adulterated or spurious liquor and authentic reason would be assigned only after receiving forensic lab report,” said Krishna.

“We had visited Kaulara Kala village in Dauki area and Deori village in Tajganj police station area on Wednesday after reports of 10 deaths allegedly because of consumption of liquor. Statements of family members were recorded and assessment was made about the sequence of incidents as these villagers fell ill after consuming liquor,” said the ADG who made it clear that those found guilty would not be spared. “We have issued directions to expedite the report from forensic lab where viscera was sent for testing after post mortem examination. Thereafter, we will be in a position to assign exact reasons to the deaths,” he said. “A few people have been taken into custody for interrogation. We are trying to find out if there is some organized gang behind these deaths if they are due to spurious liquor. Tough action will be taken if such involvement is found,” said the ADG.

It may be recalled that three people had died in Kaulara Kala and one in a nearby village on Monday. Six other deaths took place in Deori and another village the following day. The villagers cited spurious liquor as the reason behind these deaths. Villagers of Kaulara Kala even blamed police for forced cremation of one Ramveer, one of the deceased, at about 2 am on Wednesday. The ADG assured that allegations of forced cremation would also be probed .

Four of the liquor vends in Dauki area were sealed by police after the incident.