Rural women demolish hooch units

RURAL WOMEN demolished 200 illicit liquor units in Jungle Chauri, Pandey Tola and Badka Pandey Tola locality under Khorabar police station on Saturday. Armed with sticks and sharp-edged weapons, women hit the streets around 11 am and carried out the ?demolition? drive. Two women sustained injuries in the process. The police remained a mute spectator to the incident.

RURAL WOMEN demolished 200 illicit liquor units in Jungle Chauri, Pandey Tola and Badka Pandey Tola locality under Khorabar police station on Saturday.

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Armed with sticks and sharp-edged weapons, women hit the streets around 11 am and carried out the ‘demolition’ drive. Two women sustained injuries in the process. The police remained a mute spectator to the incident.

The city has become a hub of the hooch trade. Hooch is even sold in the vicinity of religious places. Though the district administration launched a crackdown, it failed to put an end to the business.

In particular, the Khorabar is considered to be a haven for bootleggers. Villagers of the area made repeated complaints to the police, but to no avail.

According to reports, the Littler Flower Society of Jungle Sikri, the Sita, the Saraswati and the Parvati self-groups issued an ultimatum to local police to remove illicit liquor units from the areas.

On June 22, they had given one weeks’ time to the administration to take steps to check the trade. As the local police did not take any notice, women hit the streets on Saturday and demolished around 200 furnaces.

Sources said the police arrested four bootleggers, but district officials did not confirm this.

The bootleggers whose units were demolished were identified as Komal Pasi, Subhash Pasi and others. There are around 1200 units in Khorabar police station.

Sources said the police had taken no action earlier, as some policemen were in league with bootleggers.