As toll in spurious liquor tragedy rises to 143, Mamata Banerjee orders inquiry.
With over 70 people dying in three hospitals after consuming toxic liquor, the death toll in the hooch tragedy in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district on Thursday climbed to 143 as police arrested ten persons and the government ordered a CID inquiry.
West Bengal chief minister announced this in the Assembly on Thursday.
The reports reaching here from South 24 Paragana, said a large number of affected people are being shifted to government hospitals in Kolkata. The district officials fear that death toll may go up with a large number of affected people fighting for their lives in hospitals.
Close on the heels of the fire that claimed over 90 lives, the hooch tragedy is another disaster the state is facing though Mamata Banerjee did not pay the victims a visit which is set to attract criticism for her politically. However, her government has announced Rs2 lakh compensation for kin of the dead, besides another Rs10,000 for the last rites of the dead. As pressure mounted, Banerjee has also proposed an all-party meeting on the issue on next Monday.
The victims comprising hawkers, rickshaw-pullers fell prey to a well-developed spurious liquor industry that over the years mushroomed in Srangrampur, Usthi and Mogerhat in the district with a tacit political patronage.
While local people destroyed most of the outlets of spurious liquor selling joints with officials from administration, the police could not arrest Noor Islam Fakir or Khora Badsha who had been running the spurious liquor industry with help of one Salim, a politically well-connected man in this backward area, though police arrested 10 people in this connection.
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