Cheers, protests mark reopening of Tasmac liquor shops in Madurai

MADURAI: The face of M Selva, an ex-serviceman from Kamarajar Street in Anna Nagar, gleamed with joy as he carried a full bottle whisky from a Tasmac outlet on the 80-Feet Road, within 15 minutes of the reopening of the outlet.
“It has been more than 40 days and I struggled a lot these days. Very happy to hold bottle after long time,” he said, while leaving on his two-wheeler.
A large number of tipplers in Madurai formed a beeline at nearly 230 Tasmac liquor shops in Madurai on Thursday morning. Police teams were deployed at each outlet to make sure people were maintaining social distance and wearing masks. However, things went haywire by noon due to many reasons.
“We are tired of insisting people to maintain a safe distance. People did not bother to follow the rules,” complained a sub-inspector of police posted at a shop in Kochadai.
Many shops had made arrangements by erecting wooden poles to streamline the crowd. While police managed the crowd enthusiastically for a few hours in the morning, they later took shade under trees due to the scorching heat. This led to tipplers bumping onto each other in queues.
Hundreds of people thronged at a few shops in rural areas.
Using the public address system, police officials constantly insisted on people to carry their Aadhaar cards as an age proof. However, later in the day people of all age groups were allowed to purchase liquor.
The reopening of the liquor shops caused unrest among a few groups of people, particularly women. A large number of women gathered at a shop in Sellur and staged a protest. They forced the police to shut the shops. However, officials managed to disperse the protesters using additional force.
Cadres of DMK and its allies staged protests at various places in the city and rural areas.
There are 265 Tasmac shops in Madurai district, out of which 51 were not opened. Most of the 51 shops came in containment zones while a few did not open due to unavailability of liquor.