CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal on 28 May expressed serious concern over the dozen or more deaths due to poisonous liquor in Gaya and Aurangabad Districts. He said that hundreds of lives have been lost to poisonous liquor so far in Bihar but the government remains insensitive; how many deaths will it take for the government to wake up?
The Bihar government is taking no action against the liquor mafia, and is actually protecting this mafia, which is why the deaths are continuing unabated. We reiterate our demand that the government should rein in the politician-administration-liquor mafia nexus and conduct a high level enquiry into this.
On 27 May a CPIML enquiry team led by Aurangabad District Secretary Munarik Ram investigated the poisonous liquor deaths in 22 villages in Madanpur Block. The enquiry team visited Pansare, Noniadih, Padaria, Beri, Khirariawan, Bairiawan, Ararua, Jogri and other villages, and found that the liquor smugglers from the Sherghati side had smuggled liquor in gallons into these villages, after drinking which more than 100 people were affected. Most of the people have lost their eyesight. Three or four hours after consuming the liquor people started feeling discomfort and lost their eyesight. Some people quietly went to private hospitals and some to government hospitals. What is astonishing is that Mansara and Noniadih villages, where this liquor is sold, are located just 200m from Madanpur Thana and the villagers have many times given written applications to the Thana in-charge. One year ago they also gave an application to the Aurangabad SDO but the administration has taken no action. Moreover, even a post-mortem has not been done on many of the deceased victims.
The number and names of the victims are as follows: Village Pansare: 1. Kameshwar Bhuiyan (41) and 2. Rambhuj Bhuiyan (52); Village Noniadih: 3. Subhash Bhuiyan (36); Village Padaria: 4. Dilkeshwar Mahto (55) and 5. Kamlesh Ram (42); Village Beri: 6. Shyamdev Ram (36), 7. Ravindra Singh (55), 8. Rahul Mishra (24), 9. Nizamuddin Miyan (35), and 10. Ramnandan Singh (48); Village Khirariawan: 11. Vinod Pal (46), 12. Bablu Sao (36), 13. Suresh Paswan (32), 14. Kamta Pasi (38) and 15. Ramdas Ram (48) ; Village Bairiawan: 16. Birju Bhuiyan (38) and 17. Sonwa Devi (40) ; Village Ararua: 18. Suresh Singh (39) and Village Jogri: 19. Ramji Yadav (38).
It should be noted that the numbers of the dead are increasing day by day. The enquiry team comprised Munarik Ram, Kailash Paswan, Guddu Chandravanshi, Sunil Yadav, Kurmu Paswan and Amit Mishra.
