Police teams continued to be in damage control mode even as the official death toll due to consumption of spurious liquor in Bhavnagar district reached seven on Thursday.
However, The Indian Express has learnt that two more suspected victims have died, but their toxicology and post-mortem reports were awaited.
Bhavnagar District Collector Manish Kumar Bansal on Thursday evening confirmed that seven people who consumed the methanol-laced liquor had died, 32 were still under treatment, and nine others had been discharged from hospitals.
Meanwhile, the police have arrested 13 of the 21 individuals named as accused in the case. As one of the accused fell victim to the spurious liquor and died at a hospital, the police were on the lookout for seven individuals.
The deceased include Upendrasinh Chandrasinh Gohil (25), Kartik Ashwin Makwana (40), Ghanshyamsinh Jaypalsinh Jadeja (49), Kanaksinh Hanubha Gohil (37), Narendrasinh Yadav (47), Jay Jitu Bhatti (35), and Hitesh Dileep Parmar (42).
The latest confirmed death, at the time of writing this report, was on the night of August 19, when police found the body of Hitesh Parmar, a teacher, slumped over in the sitting position by his bed, with a glass of the poisonous liquor spilled on the floor before him. In the kitchen of his one-bedroom apartment in Bhavnagar city, the police found half a bottle of the same brand of IMFL batch of liquor. Narendrasinh Yadav alias Doctor, one of the seven who died by methanol poisoning, is a co-accused, along with Raees (another brewer) and Gautam Solanki (a Gujarat-based bootlegger and the alleged ringleader of the liquor racket), in the case. Yadav and Raees hail from Madhya Pradesh. Details of their roles were meticulously noted in the FIR filed at Vartej police station on Wednesday.
The FIR, based on a complaint by Inspector SB Padheriya, booked a total of 21 individuals with culpable homicide not amounting to murder among other charges under BNS sections, and provisions of the Prohibition Act.
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It stated that Solanki met Raees through an unknown suspect. “Thereafter, Gautam, Raees and Zubair (a resident of Ujjain) went to Ahmedabad to purchase raw materials to make liquor. There, they bought a white liquid, methanol, bottles and stickers, and transported them back to Bhavnagar. The three then made 51 cartons of liquor in the first round, which was sold by Gautam and his brother-in-law Jatin.”
It further said, “After destroying the second batch of liquor for its quality, Raees consulted Narendrasinh Yadav to make the third batch, in which they used methanol. They made 25 cartons of this methanol-laced liquor and distributed it among several bootleggers. Gautam Solanki gave six cartons to Paras, three to Sanjay, two to Jaydeep Jivraj Makwana, 13 to Bhargav Kaniyalal Bhatt, and 11 to Vivek Arjan Algotar.”
Notably, Yadav, who had brewed the methanol-laced liquor, consumed it himself and died at the Ved Hospital in Bhavnagar on August 18. This was confirmed by the district collector and an investigator from the police’s State Monitoring Cell (SMC).
Where are the unaccounted bottles?
The forensic testing showed that one of the ‘IMFL’ bottles seized contained 38.59% methanol and only 0.94% ethanol. Methanol is highly toxic to the human body and is not an ingredient in licensed liquor.
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The FIR in this case states that this particular batch of methanol-laced liquor was filled into 25 cartons and then distributed by retail bootleggers. At a dozen bottles per carton, the number comes to 300 bottles.
The Indian Express spoke to police officials involved in trying to confiscate them all since several bottles from the third batch were still unaccounted for. Neither Bhavnagar Police nor the SMC could confirm how many bottles had been confiscated and destroyed and how many were still in circulation.
Police appeal in a state under prohibition
As the death toll due to consumption of spurious liquor continued to rise, the State Monitoring Cell, which was given control of the investigation on August 18, warned the public not to consume the content of a particular brand of IMFL, whose barcode is similar on all bottles of the tainted liquor. The SMC said the barcode with ‘8901522000665’ was printed on the stickers of bottles containing spurious liquor they had seized so far.
“Everyone is requested to note that the photo of a bottle, which was consumed by people in the jurisdiction of Vartej Police Station in Bhavnagar, and the sticker on it is presented below. If any person has such a bottle, then they should immediately destroy the liquor. If any person has consumed such alcohol, they are requested to immediately get checked at the nearest hospital. Keep in mind the barcode mentioned in the photo of the bottle and the number shown below it,” the appeal read.
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However, the police asking people in Gujarat, a state under the prohibition law since the day it came into existence in 1960, to refrain from consuming liquor from bottles that have a specific barcode on them also raises questions about the state’s law enforcement.
When asked why the SMC had asked potential victims to destroy the liquor bottles instead of handing them to the police, an investigator said, “Who will come forward to implicate themselves in a state under prohibition? The next best thing was to appeal people to destroy it. Our first priority is to stop any more people from consuming the tainted liquor. The rest follows.”
Arrests, remand & suspension
After taking over the investigation, SMC’s Inspector SM Jadeja and his team have arrested 13 of the 21 accused persons.
A statement from the SMC on Thursday (August 20) said, “A total of 13 accused involved in this crime were arrested by forming different teams. The SMC also seized duplicate liquor bottles and chemicals used for making duplicate liquor; stickers that were ordered from different parts of the country.”
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Those arrested are Gautam Veeram Solanki (24), Jatin Suresh Kambad (21), Saras Dasharat Solanki (25), Paras alias Pappu Lalji Chudasama (30), Mandeepinh Pruthvirajsinh Gohil (20), Dhamendrasinh Batuksinh Gohil (30), Jaydeep Jivraj Makwana (27), Harsh Rohit Chauhan (25), Vivek Arjan Algotar (26), Bhargav Kanaiyalal Bhatt (29), Keval Ramesh Solanki (25), Sukhdev Badha Salat (25), and Hardik Govind Baraiya (25).
An SMC official confirmed that the local court in Bhavnagar had granted the SMC a 10-day remand of all 13 accused persons. The police remand application stated that they had to interrogate the accused to learn the locations of the remaining bottles, from where the raw materials had been sourced, and especially who had sold them the methanol used to brew the toxic concoction.
Also, an SMC team managed to also apprehend Raees, the other alleged brewer in the case. He was being brought to Gujarat on a transit warrant.
Meanwhile, Vartej Police Inspector SB Padheriya, Local Crime Branch (LCB) Inspector Mayurdhwajsinh Jadeja and four other staff members of Vartej police station were suspended from duty, in light of the tragedy.
