Friday, March 29, 2024

Bihar completes five years of total ban on liquor amidst criticism and compliments

Must Read

Express News Service
PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar claimed of positive impact due to the total prohibition of liquor as the State completes five years of ban on April 5.

The five years saw a huge number of arrests involving suppliers,liquor peddlers and seizures of both country-made and India -Made Foreign Liquor(IMFL).

CM Nitish Kumar had declared the total ban of sale and consumption of liquor with effect from April 5 in 2016. Since then, the state police along with the officials of state excise and prohibition wings continued raiding places to check the supply, sale and smuggling of liquor leading to arrest to record number of people on the charges of being involved in anti-prohibition activities.

In between all these efforts taken to ensure the total ban on liquor, many suspected deaths due to consumption of spurious liquor continued reported from across the state.

Till today, the Opposition continues to attack the ruling NDA government, led by Nitish Kumar, for prohibition dubbing it as a ‘damp squib’.

The recent report of suspected death came from Nawada where 14 persons died by consuming liquor during the Holi.

But Dr Archana Kumari, an educationist and social researcher, said that the prohibition has saved millions of homes from being ruined by the alcoholism since 2016.

Buoyed over the success in prohibition for more proper monitoring, the state government created a separate post of IG (Prohibition) now posting an upright IPS officer Amrit Raj. Raj continued wrecking havoc on liquor mafias and arrested a dozen of them from outside the state also on the charges of supplying liquor in Bihar through state-based liquor suppliers.

“From April 1 in 2016 to 20-3-2021, a total 212015 cases of violation of prohibition were lodged by police and a total 279360 persons including many mafias and liquor suppliers have been arrested in the state,” the ADG ADG (HQ) Jitendra Kumar claimed.

Quoting figures of seizure till March 20, 2021, the ADG said that more than 1.7 lakh crore litres of liquor were seized.

Maintaining zero tolerance against the laxity in duty in ensuring it, actions were taken against 644 police officers and personnel so far, in which 135 police personnel and officers have been discharged from their services.

“We have also debarred 59 police officers from being posted as SHOs for next 10 years on charges of founding them lax in duty on prohibition,” Jitendra Kumar said.

“Among the arrests, more than 6700 were the stockists of illicit liquor. We have never hesitated in taking actions against cops and 135 of them have been dismissed. This exhibits our commitment towards zero tolerance in this respect,” he added.

He said that CM Nitish Kumar and DGP SK Singhal continuously monitor the prohibition taking it to extreme level of success.

Latest News

2024 Lok Sabha elections: ‘BJP needs to pay Rs 4600 crore in tax if I-T examines them’: Congress after getting 1823 cr notice –...

Congress treasurer Ajay Maken claimed that BJP will have to pay Rs 4600 crore penalty if the I-T dept...