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Wednesday, Sep 05, 2007
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Review liquor policy: SHRC member

Staff Reporter

He does not buy the official version of hooch tragedy

Fact-finding mission: State Human Rights Commission member S. Varghese enquiring about the liquor tragedy at Avaneeshwaram in Kollam district with police officers on Tuesday.

KOLLAM: State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) member S. Varghese has said that the State Government should review its liquor policy in the wake of the recent Avaneeshwaram hooch tragedy.

He was talking to reporters at Avaneeshwaram, near here, on Tuesday after visiting the houses of Georgekutty and Sudhakaran who were killed in the tragedy.

Prof. Varghese said he had enough ground to state that toddy shops in the State lavishly stocked and sold spurious toddy. The police and excise authorities appear incompetent to control it. A good majority of the toddy shops are owned by benamis. The SHRC will ask the Government to ensure that toddy shops are run by licensees and not benamis.

Prof. Varghese said the version that deaths occurred in the Avaneeshwaram liquor tragedy because of excessive consumption of toddy seemed far-fetched. If it is so, every day there should be quite a number of deaths in States like Kerala and Goa.

He said that mystery shrouded the death of Mohammed Sherief. While the Government version is that only two died in the tragedy, a section of the media said three persons died and that the third person was Sherief. The SHRC will seek clarification from the Director-General of Police and the Excise Commissioner on this.

He inspected the Avaneeshwaram toddy shop and the adjacent plot from where spurious toddy was served free on August 28.

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