Bihar jails full after large number of liquor-related arrests

Patna: An alarming rise in the number of people being arrested for violating prohibition laws has led to overcrowding of jails in Bihar.

According to a home department report, more than 68,000 prisoners are currently lodged in 59 jails of Bihar against their total capacity of 46,669. That means 21,000 more prisoners are currently staying in these jails.

The state’s jails began to get overcrowded last month after the chief minister Nitish Kumar ordered a crackdown on people involved in smuggling alcohol. The chief minister passed the order after last month’s meeting to review the liquor ban which lasted for six hours. During the meeting attended by two deputy chief ministers, 24 cabinet ministers and all top bureaucrats, the chief minister curtly told them that he would not tolerate any kind of negligence in enforcing total liquor ban.

The instruction has now resulted in a large number of arrests being made every day, overcrowding the state jails. According to a rough estimate, around 10,000 people have been arrested in the past 40 days for violating the liquor laws. Of them, more than 6,800 have been jailed in the past fortnight itself, a home department official said.

According to a report, in the past one week alone 2,220 people have been arrested in the course of 13,405 raids conducted separately by the state police and prohibition department officials to nab drinkers and the people involved in the illicit trade of alcohol. If the total number of raids are an indication, around 1,900 raids are being conducted every day.

According to a home department report, a total of 56,424 prisoners were lodged in the jails till April this year, and now their total number has gone up to more than 68,000. A maximum of 5,578 prisoners are lodged in Beur central jail of Patna against its capacity to accommodate 2,360 prisoners. Similarly, 4,626 prisoners have been kept in Muzaffarpur central jail against its total capacity of 2,135.

The state government is now constructing nine more jails across Bihar — each having a total capacity to accommodate at least 1,000 prisoners. Apart from them, four sub-jails are also under construction.

The Bihar government hardened its stand against the liquor mafia after more than 50 people died after consuming spurious liquor in various districts of the state, earning severe criticism. Although the state government enforced a total liquor ban in April 2016, liquor continued to flow easily in the state much to the embarrassment of the government.