Illicit liquor manufacturing on the rise in region

VARANASI: The hooch manufacturers are becoming active in the district again.
People have yet not forgotten the death of 30 persons in two hooch tragedies that took place on February 17, 2010, at Soyepur and on April 4, 2010, in Kapsethi area.
After these tragedies, the excise as well as police department made continuous efforts to check the manufacturing and trading of hooch, though the manufacturing of illicit liquor with mahua and rice in the slums and brick kilns could not be stopped.
But when the excise department launched a special drive against the manufacturers and traders of illicit liquor before the festival of Diwali, it came to light that the liquor mafia is trying to emerge in this district again. District excise officer Dheeraj Singh told TOI on Monday, “This special drive was conducted from October 5 to 31. During this drive when our enforcement teams raided a dhaba on GT Road in Bihda area under Mirzamurad police station limits, several pouches of illicit liquor were recovered.”
On the tip off given by the dhaba owner, the enforcement team raided the house of one Ajay Jaiswal in Badaura area under Jansa police station limits where illicit liquor manufacturing and packaging unit was unearthed.
The team recovered a sealing machine, 7,000 empty pouches, caps, duplicate holograms, labels of country-made and Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) brands at the unit.
Dheeraj Singh said, “The recovery of 33 litres of over proof (rectified alcohol of 95 degree) and caramel (colour) was alarming. If this over proof alcohol had not been diluted properly possibility of another hooch tragedy could not be denied.”
Excise inspector Atul Tripathi said that though Ajay managed to escape, the enforcement team succeeded in nabbing his wife Indu Jaiswal after the seizure of the unit.
The excise officials surely averted another hooch tragedy by unearthing this unit, but checking the menace of ‘kachchi daru or khufiya daru (illicit liquor prepared from mahua and rice commonly known as lahan) manufacturers in the identified slums and brick kilns is proving impossible despite repeated raids.
The officials revealed that there are about 30 pockets including the Kanjad bastis of Phoolpur, Badagaon, Paranapur Kanjad bastis in Chaubeypur, Kanudih and Dulhipur area in Shuvpur in the rural belt and slums of Maldahiya and Senpura in city area where the manufacturing of illicit liquor continues despite all the action.
The labourers from the states like Jharkhand who work at brick kilns also work at illicit liquor units in many areas like Bhatwal, Misirpur and Jafrabad in Rohania, Amaut in Phoolpur.
Singh said that during the special drive which concluded on Monday, 250 cases of illicit liquor manufacturing and trading came to light in these pockets. He said that 250 persons engaged in this work were arrested, out of which 35 were sent to jail under the sections of Excise Acts and also Food Adulteration Act, while 3,750 kachchi liquor, 90 litres of illicit country made liquor and 33 litres of over proof alcohol were seized. The enforcement teams also destroyed over 100 quintals of raw material.