‘According to the National Human Rights Commission, there was an absence of relief and compensation that should have been provided to the victims’.
NEW DELHI: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has severely indicted the Bihar government for suppressing and minimizing information in the death toll in the Saran hooch tragedy that happened last year in December.
As per the NHRC’s report—which is based on a spot finding nine members team that had visited the Saran and Siwan district of Bihar, the two most affected districts—while the state government has claimed that only 42 people had died, the NHRC’s inquiry committee found that at least 77 people died in the tragedy after consuming spurious liquor on the night of 13-16 December.
During the spot inquiry, the NHRC teams visited the homes of 68 bereaved families and seven victims who lost their eyesight. Of the 77 deceased, 57 belonged to Scheduled Caste or OBCs. Most of the victims hailed from poor economic backgrounds. The epicenter of the liquor tragedy was the area in the jurisdiction of police station Mashrakh, Saran, where 45 persons had died, while the official death toll in this area was reported to be only 27. The deaths have been reported across three villages under Mashrakh, Ishuapur and Amnaur police stations of Marhaura Sub Division of Saran.
The NHRC report has also highlighted the poor state of the medical infrastructure in the state. “Such is the state of medical infrastructure in the state that there are no adequate medical facilities to handle such tragedies in government hospitals or were not made available to affected families,” the NHRC found.
As per the NHRC, most of the affected victim family members were compelled to hire expensive private vehicles to ferry the victims as there was no government ambulance. Nearly 80% of the deceased were in the productive working age of 21-60 years and 75% belonged to Scheduled Caste and OBC.
The spurious liquor, which caused this large scale human tragedy, seems to have originated from a common source as all the victims were found to be living in a relatively compact geographical area around the jurisdiction of Mashrakh and also because most of the deaths had taken place within a period of about 24 hours.
This, official sources told The Sunday Guardian, indicates the presence of a well-oiled network of liquor mafia that was operating in the region with the active support of the local administration. The NHRC team was led by member Rajiv Jain who went to Saran and Siwan from 20 to 22 December 2022. The local administration, in both these two districts, as per the NHRC, indulged in suppression of the extent of the tragedy.
The SP of Saran at that time was Santosh Kumar, a 2014 batch IPS officer. He was later transferred to the Special Task Force after the tragedy unfolded. The SP of Siwan, Shailesh Kumar Sinha, a 2012 batch IPS officer, continues to hold the post. The District Magistrate of Siwan, who joined the post in February 2020 is Amit Kumar Pandey, a 2014 batch IAS officer. The DM of Saran, Rajesh Meena, is a 2012 batch IAS officer, and he continues to hold the post after being posted in Saran in November 2021.
“Firstly, it was found that the number of persons dying due to consumption of liquor was being suppressed and the extent of tragedy minimized. This minimization happened by not registering or recognizing such deaths as caused by spurious liquor, by not conducting post-mortems or accepting requests for not doing post-mortem, or ascribing the deaths to extraneous factors. The inquiry committee came across manifest evidence that the affected families tried to avoid informing the police even when family members died due to consumption of spurious liquor. This was largely due to perceived fear of legal consequences of reporting the matter to the authorities. What is even more disturbing is that the state authorities themselves made no efforts to properly record and report active incidents of death due to consumption of liquor. Since there is minimization, the gravity and extent of liquor tragedies do not come to light, thereby precluding the State from taking remedial measures,” the NHRC found.
According to NHRC, there was an absence of relief and compensation that should have been provided to the victims. “Lack of response in terms of provision of immediate relief and mitigation to victims or their families, besides non-payment of compensation to the next of kin of the deceased was also noticed. The declared policy of the state government that no compensation shall be paid to the families of the deceased seems to be unfair on two counts. Firstly, it amounts to punishing the innocents as the wives and children of these men who have lost their lives were in no way responsible for violation of the excise laws. Secondly, it is the bounden duty of the State to offer relief / compensation to distressed persons, particularly family members of those who died due to the failure of the State to enforce its prohibition policy in an effective manner.”
The BJP Member of Parliament from Saran, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, stated that the NHRC’s findings have exposed the weak and poor administration of the Nitish Kumar-led government in the state.
“Who is responsible for the death of these poor people? The state government has failed miserably at all fronts, neither could it execute prohibition in the state, nor did it assist the NHRC team that had come to Bihar. I had raised this issue in Parliament and sought a fact-finding team after which the NHRC went to Saran and Siwan as the state government was trying to cover up the entire episode,” Rudy said.
The NHRC team, during its inquiry, found that the district administration had not provided monetary relief to the victims or the next of kin of the deceased.
The team also observed that the District Administration and the police headed by Collectors and Superintendents of Police of districts Saran and Siwan were complicit in minimizing the gravity of the tragedy and failed to provide relief to the victims or their families.
As per the NHRC, the police and Excise Department had failed to fully enforce complete prohibition and administration of the Act despite the said act being in effect since 2016. Significantly, it noted that despite the passage of six years since enactment of “The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016”, the state government’s Health Department has failed to develop Standard Operating Protocol to treat patients who fall sick after consumption of spurious liquor.
Due to this, there is no mechanism to treat such patients affected due to spurious liquor by establishing a separate health center, rehabilitation center and engaging expert health care workers for attending to such patients.
Initially, the Saran administration in its reply dated 14 January 2023 to the NHRC which—after taking a suo motu cognizance of the matter, issued notices to the Chief Secretary and the DGP, Bihar, for submitting a detailed report in the matter—maintained that a total of 42 persons had died in the said liquor tragedy.
While the Saran SP stated that five cases were registered in relation to this tragedy, it did not include particulars of three other cases which had been registered in respect to the liquor tragedy. The NHRC got no reply from the Chief Secretary and DGP.