Father's alcoholism drives family to commit suicide

BHUBANESWAR: An alcoholic's wife and two daughters, upset with his addiction to liquor, consumed poison in Orissa's Jajpur district. While one of the girls died, the other daughter and mother are battling for life, police said on Monday.

Manmath Jena, 45, a resident of Mulasar village, had promised his family that he would quit drinking but failed to do so. In frustration, his wife Kalayni and daughters Maunabati, 18, and Manini, 16, consumed pesticide, police officer U.C. Gadnayak said.

While Manini died on the way to the hospital, the other two were in a serious condition, Gadnayak said.

More than 100 people died in 1992 after consuming spurious liquor in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Since then, several women's organisations in the state have been demanding total prohibition of sale and manufacture of liquor.

The state imposed a ban on alcohol in 1994, but the Congress, which came to power in 1995, lifted it to earn revenue. The government itself began retailing liquor after chief minister Naveen Patnaik took office in 2000.