12 more nabbed in Gopalganj hooch case

PATNA: Twelve more persons were arrested in connection with the Gopalganj hooch tragedy in which the death toll mounted to 21 on Saturday. However, Gopalganj SP Anand Kumar confirmed only 13 deaths so far. He told TOI over phone that the postmortem of all 13 persons of Mohammadpur village under the same police station area had been conducted.
Sources from Gopalganj said the the authorities were not counting those deceased whose bodies had been cremated without informing the police.
The SP said 30 persons have been arrested and police seized at least 390 litres of liquor from different police station areas in continuous crackdown on liquor smugglers so far.
Officially, Manoranjan Singh and Raj Kumar Mishra from Mohammadpur died on Friday night. Sources said several persons whose names were not in the ‘official’ list of the deceased, are those who consumed liquor in Mohammadpur and left for different places.
The SP said the postmortem examination was conducted on even those whose family members initially said they had several kinds of illnesses. “Things would get cleared from the postmortem and forensic test reports,” he said.
He said at least 30 liquor pouches recovered from the two houses in Mohammadpur where they had consumed it, were sent for forensic analysis on Saturday after court order.
Kumar said senior police officers in the district, including him, had a meeting with the chowkidars in the entire district after calling them at Thawe.
“More than 550 chowkidars had gathered yesterday. They were sensitized for intelligence gathering against liquor smuggling and those involved in it. They were also sensitized about the kind of action they need to take to avoid hooch incidents,” he said.
Kumar said more meetings were held with groups of chowkidars at different police stations on Saturday.