Nonia Tola, Gopal Gunj: Reena Devi and her kids — two daughters and a son — look expressionless sitting on the cement steps of a shop outside her one-room living quarters in Nonia Tola of Gopalgunj town. She doesn’t know how to carry on with her life and fend for the family anymore.

Her husband, Umesh Mahto, a tractor driver and part-time hotel worker, was among the 13 people who died on Tuesday after consuming “spurious liquor”. Devi works as a housemaid, earning Rs. 1,200 a month.

‘Habitual drinker’

“My husband used to be a habitual drinker,” Devi says, looking up to the skies with a blank expression.

Tears on her face have dried up ever since Mahto’s body had been hurriedly consigned to flames. Devi has bare minimum utensils and a hearth in her house. Her children often break into loud cries, but the distraught mother pats them in an attempt to calm them down.

“There is nothing in the house to cook for them… they are hungry… how I will feed them in the future, it haunts me”, she says. No government officials have come to her help yet, neither her in-laws.

“She [Devi] is so poor that we had to collect funds to dispose her husband’s body. It has all happened because of easy availability of country-made liquor all around the town”, said Raju Kumar Soni, a Nonia Tola youth.

The situation is similar outside the ramshackle house of Sashikant Mahto whose wife Kanchan Devi and mother Leela Devi sat inconsolable among a group of women. Sashikant, alias Sipahi, too became a victim of hooch on Tuesday.

“He came home yesterday [Tuesday] and soon complained of severe stomach pain. When we asked him, he said he had taken country-made liquor. We admitted him to the local government hospital, where he died at 6 p.m. The doctors said he had taken poison but we know he consumed liquor”, said Leela Devi. Sashikant, who was a daily wage labourer, has no children. “He took liquor almost every day despite our reprimand. How will his young wife survive now? None from the government has approached us so far” said Leela Devi, wondering from where his son sourced liquor when it was banned in the State.

“Who said it is banned. Everyday my son used to come home drunk. I ask you from where was he getting liquor?”

Local residents claimed that Sashikant bought hooch from the nearby Khajurbani locality close to a railway crossing.

Two in a family

Outside the dank house of Parma Mahto (60), his wife Jeetan Devi and son Munmun Mahto and other family members stand in shock. Parma is among the four people from the locality who lost their lives to spurious liquor, believed to have been sourced from Khajurbani. Parma was a street vendor who sold bananas and other seasonal fruits.

“He had been drinking liquor for the past several years. Last night too, he came home drunk. However, after sometime, he started vomiting. Though we admitted him to the local hospital, he could not be saved. His elder son, Arun Mahto, too was a habitual drinker and died in 2011 from excessive drinking,” said Jeetan Devi.

Munmun Mahto, who too ekes out a living as a street vendor, is now perturbed about running the family without the earnings of his father. “I live with my wife and three little children and my mother. My income alone is not enough to run the family”, he rues.

Munmun’s sister, Nitu Devi, who is married had come home to tie rakhi to his brother on Raksha Bandhan day on Thursday. But what greeted her was the news of the death in the family. “We know my father died of consuming spurious alcohol but the doctors at the hospital said he died of poison. From where did he get poison? I don’t know why they were lying”, she said.

Across Nonia Tola, people claimed that liquor was in fact available at every nook and corner of the town despite all the “brouhaha over total prohibition”.

“The government is running a parallel economy and the policemen are making money out of it. Please realise that many more people will die of this [hooch]”, cautioned one resident Jitendra Mahto, while others nodded in agreement.

(Source: The Hindu)