Gujarat hooch crackdown: 2500 arrested for selling illicit liquor

New Delhi, July, 29: In a major crackdown on bootleggers in the wake of the hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad, the Gujarat police reportedly arrested 2,500 people on Friday.

The cops have also seized illicit liquor worth about Rs 1.5 crore, a senior police official told Hindustan Times.

The cops had launched a search on bootleggers and conducted state-wide prohibition raids and 2,405 accused have been arrested for selling Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), the report adds.

Meanwhile, Congress on Friday alleged that the illicit liquor trade was "flourishing" in the state under the protection of ruling forces and demanded a probe by a sitting high court judge.

The comment comes following the hooch tragedy that killed 42 from Botad and neighbouring Ahmedabad district after consuming the spurious liquor on July 25. 97 people are still admitted to hospitals in Bhavnagar, Botad and Ahmedabad, according to Gujarat Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters, Congress' media department head Pawan Khera and Rajya Sabha MP Amee Yajnik urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak up on the deaths due to spurious liquor and meet families of the victims during his Gujarat visit.

Khera said it has come to light that 600 litres of 'methyl alcohol' (methanol) was brought from Ahmedabad to Botad district after which water was mixed in it and it was sold in different areas due to which people either lost their lives or suffered kidney damage.

The production and sale of such a dangerous chemical substance should be closely monitored by the government but what happened in this case raises many serious questions, he said.

All this is not possible in a "dry state" without the knowledge of the local police and administration, Khera said.

He said Congress demands that the spurious liquor scandal be investigated by a sitting judge of the high court because if the police, which is being accused, will investigate, then there will be no point in that probe. "Most of the people who died due to drinking spurious liquor were poor and were bread earners of their respective households. Appropriate compensation should be given to such families," Khera said.

Police investigation has revealed that a person named Jayesh aka Raju, who has been arrested, had stolen 600 litres of methyl alcohol from a godown in Ahmedabad where he worked as a manager and then sold it to his Botad-based cousin Sanjay for Rs 40,000 on July 25.

Despite knowing that it was an industrial solvent, Sanjay sold the chemical to local bootleggers of different villages of Botad. These bootleggers mixed water in the chemical and sold it to people as country-made liquor, police had said.