Government hits back at Cong,accuses opposition of politicising tragedy

In a joint statement issued on Monday,government spokesmen Jay Narayan Vyas and Saurabh Patel said that as many as 5,235 people across the country had died after consuming poisonous liquor in the last seven years,with the maximum death toll of 1,251 reported in 2007,followed by 835 in 2002,724 in 2005,685 in 2006,653 in 2004,574 in 2001 and 513 in 2003.

Giving details of the death toll in hooch tragedies that have occurred in some of the non-prohibition states,Vyas said that at least 31 people had died in Kollam district of Kerala in 2000,while 10 and four people had lost their lives in Puri and Khudra districts of Orissa in 2001 and in Bhuvanehswar in 2009.

In Karnataka and Tamil Nadu,as many as 168 people had fallen victim to spurious liquor between May 19 and 22 in 2008. In Kolkata,13 people died and 25 others were affected by hooch in January this year,while seven people lost their lives in Bangalore in 2007.

Refuting the allegation by the Opposition Congress that a bootlegger owing allegiance to the ruling BJP was responsible for the Ahmedabad killer brew tragedy and that the crime branch was busy protecting him,the government spokesmen challenged the Congress to prove this.

“Our government is committed to implementing the prohibition policy effectively in Mahatma Gandhiji’s Gujarat,and we oppose the recent statement given by liquor baron Vijay Mallya asking the government to lift prohibition from the state,” Vyas added.