Illicit brew flows freely here

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, SEPT. 8. The hooch tragedy which claimed 13 lives at Menambedu in Ambattur has shaken the residents of the laid back village and they are yet to come to terms with the gravity of the situation.

The families of those killed are shattered and the survivors face an uncertain future, deprived of the breadwinners. Despite all their grief, they are worried about where the next meal will come from.

Young Ms.Padma, whose husband Masilomony, a tailor, was one of the victims, is yet to recover from the shock. Hugging her two children and crying uncontrollably she recalled ``my husband complained of giddiness and started vomiting on Thursday night. Suddenly he said his vision was fading. We first took him to a private hospital and then to the Kilpauk Medical College hospital, where they declared him dead'', she said.

Ms.Padma's mother charged ``my son-in-law had given up drinking for some time. However, as it was freely available in the village he got hooked to the habit again''.

Most families of the victims had gone to the hospital to receive the bodies. Thursday's tragedy also ironically claimed the lives of-Dilli and Masanamuthu-who allegedly prepared the killer brew. While these two alleged distillers and another Masanamuthu died on Friday, the others who died today were-Ravi, Subramani, Soundarajan, Kuppusamy, Srinivasan, Selvaraj, Thulakanam, Krishnan, Ponnaian and Chellammal.

The villagers are agitated and charge that though several of them protested the sale of illicit arrack the business thrived with the active support of the police.

``Personnel both from the local police station and the PEW came regularly and collected mamool from the bootleggers in full public view'', the residents alleged.

``Today as several senior police officials descended on the village, the local police hastily destroyed 12 cans of illicit arrack. The cans are now at a local waste paper mart,'' a villager charged and offered to show them to prove his point.

Even as senior police officials take shelter under the pretext that the tragedy occurred because of rectified spirit and not illicit distillation, a visit to the interior villages presents a different picture.

Enquiries with the residents revealed that locally prepared brew flows freely in most of the nearby villages and the sellers were active at Menambedu, which was a black spot village.

While Thursday's tragedy could have been caused by rectified spirit, distillation and sale of illicit arrack continues to be rampant on the outskirts. Arrack which is manufactured in interior villages near a water source is then transported to other villages where it is diluted and sold.

Even at Menambedu, the two sellers died while allegedly checking the quality of the brew, it is stated.

There is a strong view among forensic experts that the killer brew could have been methyl alcohol, going by the symptoms of the victims such as loss of vision before death.

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