Patna: Authorities in Bihar have launched disciplinary action against 52 police officials for “aiding and abetting” illegal liquor trade in the state where the alcohol was banned last year. This is the first time in the past 13 months that so many officials have come in the firing line.
All the officials, many of them in senior positions, are from north Bihar. The action follows chief minister Nitish Kumar ordering a crackdown on all those involved in ‘neutralising’ the government’s total prohibition law, which was enforced in April last year.
“We have identified as many as 52 police officials involved in the illegal liquor trade and have recommended for departmental proceedings against them,” a senior police official, Sunil Kumar, told the media on Sunday. Apart from them, action is being taken against other 244 persons for being actively involved in this trade despite repeated warning, he added.
The authorities have now launched the process to confiscate the properties of all those involved in the illegal trade.
In another development, the state government has ordered the police to destroy liquor to be confiscated during the drive within a maximum of 30 days from the day of seizure after rats were blamed for guzzling around a million litres of seized alcohol kept in police storerooms.
Reports said all the top police officials have been told to provide security for every drop of seized liquor and send complete details of liquor being seized every day to the state police headquarters failing which punitive action would be initiated against them.
The state government is bewildered at the way the liquor continues to flow in “dry” Bihar despite every effort by the government to strictly enforce total prohibition. In the past over a week, seized liquor worth around Rs100 million (Dh5.7 million) has been destroyed in various districts of the state, prompting the opposition to take potshots at the government.
“Total prohibition has become a total farce in Bihar. The government doesn’t have the will power to enforce it, the announcement is just an eyewash,” federal minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan said today. LJP is a key ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance which rules India.
Paswan wondered at the way hundreds of thousands litres of alcohol had been allegedly guzzled down by rats. “We all know who these ‘rats’ are but instead of nabbing them, the government is trying to hush up the case,” he added.
