PATNA: Five policemen in prohibition-bound Bihar’s Gopalganj district were placed under suspension on Saturday after a liquor bottle and a chicken were found in their patrol vehicle that crushed a pregnant woman to death.
“An assistant sub-inspector, four constables and a police driver who were in the patrol team were placed under suspension after a preliminary probe. It is yet to be ascertained if they were under the influence of alcohol at the time,” said Gopalganj SP Ravi Ranjan Kumar. Blood samples of the five cops have been collected and sent to a laboratory for tests, he added.
Kiran Devi, a pregnant woman in her late 20s, was crushed to death under the wheels of the Tata Sumo patrol vehicle of Mohammadpur police station in the wee hours of Friday. Photographs taken by the local people showed a bottle of foreign liquor and a white chicken on the back seat of the vehicle. The villagers claimed the five cops in the vehicle were in a drunken condition.
The incident, coming two days after the state government flamboyantly observed the second anniversary of the day the liquor ban came into force, gave the Opposition parties fresh fodder to target Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“The police department is under the direct control of Nitish Kumar. The police force by which he is implementing prohibition is found keeping with it alcohol and chicken. Sahib was offering loads of knowledge on prohibition a day ago,” tweeted Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav of RJD.
Yadav also asked Nitish Kumar to explain why alcohol is still being smuggled into Bihar from Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, which are ruled by “his path-showing ally BJP”.
Kumar, who implemented prohibition in Bihar in April 2016 after enacting a stringent law, had on Thursday extolled the socioeconomic gains accrued from prohibition. He had said at an official programme that he is committed to prohibition and communal harmony.