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BJP govt responsible for 400 deaths due to illicit liquor: Lallu

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh (UP) Congress Committee president Ajay Kumar Lallu attacked the state government over illicit liquor trade and related deaths

Published on: Apr 4, 2021, 23:41:11 IST
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Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh (UP) Congress Committee president Ajay Kumar Lallu attacked the state government over illicit liquor trade and related deaths.

HT Image
HT Image

He alleged the BJP government was responsible for nearly 400 deaths in four years caused due to illicit liquor consumption in the state.

He alleged illegal liquor manufacturers and smugglers were running a parallel business of over 10,000 crore and the government was either shying away from acting against them or doing just lip service to them in the name of initiating effective action against them.

“The honourable High Court on April 12, 2017, had ordered stringent measures such as Gangster Act, life imprisonment against illegal liquor traders. But the state government had failed to check illegal liquor manufacture, trade, and deaths in the state capital and the areas and districts nearby. Liquor mafia was earning crores of rupees by smuggling illegal liquor from other states also,” the UP Congress chief said at a press conference in Lucknow.

“The state has a nexus of excise department, police, and liquor mafia and in their greed for money they are distributing death,” he said.

The UPCC president said the government made tall claims but so far has not able to punish even a single liquor mafia. After every tragic incident, the government makes a readymade statement that “toughest of action will be taken after investigation report come in”.

“However, in reality one never gets to know about those tough actions,” he said. Giving district wise and date wise incidents of hooch tragedies in the state in four years, Lallu said that from time to time, the liquor mafia also had attacked police.

Dheeraj Gurjar, the national secretary of Congress, at the press conference demanded an independent judicial probe into all the illicit liquor deaths in the state in four years and file murder cases against the culprits.