In dry Bihar, villagers love to loot illegal liquor bottles and chickens, dead or alive, lying scattered on road after the vehicles carrying them met with an accident and overturned. Villagers in Banka district looted 12 quintals of chicken on March 20 after the van carrying them had a head-on collision with a Sports Utility Vehicle and overturned.
This is not the first such incident and there have been similar scenes earlier, where in people were fleeing with liquor bottles after the vehicles transporting them illegally got overturned, in various parts of the dry State.
In April 2016, Bihar was declared a dry State under new stringent provisions of State Prohibition and Excise Act. However, since then, more than 1.86 crore litres of illicit liquor, both IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) and desi (country made), have been seized in the State and a total of 3,61,077 cases have been registered with total arrests of 5,17,419 people until December 2022 for violation of liquor laws in the State.
A pick-up van carrying a total 24 quintals of chicken met a head-on collision with an SUV near terah mile chowk (thoroughfare) under Rajaun Police station in Banka district and overturned on Monday morning. The chickens came out cackling on the road, though many got trapped under the vehicle and died. The driver of the van fled from the spot out of fear. As soon as the villagers got to know about the chickens cackling and roaming free on the road, they rushed to the spot and, later, were seen fleeing with two-three chickens in their hands. Some of them even had pressed one chicken tightly under their armpit. In half-an-hour, all the living chickens had vanished from the spot and then some villagers were seen trying hard to pull out even those dead and were got entangled under the overturned van.
Later, local police reached the spot and chased away all the villagers who were on the chicken-looting spree, from an overturned vehicle which had caused traffic jam on the road for more than an hour. “We’ve seized both the vehicles and took them to the police station. Further investigation is on”, said Manoj Kumar Singh, police officer at Rajaun police station.
Earlier, in December 2021, a tough competition was seen among village men, women and even children to take away illegal liquor bottles scattered on the road after they fell out from bikes of liquor smugglers at Semra Mor in Gopalganj district. In the video of the incident which had went viral on social media, even a policeman was seen with a liquor bottle in his pocket at that time. Later, a liquor smuggler identified as Ram Kumar Ram of Nirjalahan village was arrested by the police.
In a similar incident in November 2019, a car bearing West Bengal registration number had met with an accident in a bid to save a goat loitering on the road near Forbesganj in Araria district and got overturned and illegal liquor bottles tumbled out of the car. The villagers were seen pushing and shoving each other to loot the illicit liquor bottles. The men, women and children were seen taking out liquor bottles in their hand and running out from the spot, flashing a wry smile on their faces.
“In dry Bihar, whenever a vehicle overturns, especially in border areas, fair chances are that illegal liquor bottles tumble out from them. The liquor smuggling has become a most profiting business in Bihar today. And in such a situation, the spirited villagers get a chance to spring and get liquor bottles free of charge to quench their thirst”, mocked a retired senior police officer in Patna.
Since prohibition is effected in Bihar in April 2016, several vehicles engaged in illegal trade of liquor from neighbouring States have got overturned, for some reason or other, in Bihar and villagers had a real “luck by chance” to enjoy their booze time, especially during festival time, a village mukhia (headman) of Manjhi in border district of Saran district told The Hindu.
