According to the police, the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsar on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday. (Picture for representation)
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Saturday ordered suspension of seven excise officers along with two DSPs and four SHOs of Punjab Police in connection with the hooch tragedy, which has claimed 86 lives so far. The Chief Minister also announced Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia compensation to each of the families of the deceased, most of whom are from Tarn Taran, which accounts for 64 deaths, followed by 11 deaths in Amritsar Rural and 11 deaths in Gurdaspur (Batala).
“The death of even a single Punjabi, be it due to Covid or illicit liquor consumption, was unfortunate and life of every Punjabi is important to me,” said Singh.
A senior police officer told news agency PTI that families of several victims were not coming forward to record their statements, and were “refusing to accept” that spurious liquor had killed their kin. Gurdaspur Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Ishfaq was quoted by PTI as saying: “The wards of some of those who died are not accepting that they died because of hooch. They are saying their family member had a heart attack.”
Tarn Taran DC Kulwant Singh said some families had even cremated the bodies without informing the police.
The Indian Express had reported that on Thursday, bodies of five dead in Amritsar had been cremated without post-mortem, while the same was witnessed in Batala and Tarn Taran on Friday.
On Friday afternoon, a Punjab government press note said that dead in these cases will not be cremated without a post-mortem.
So far, around 10 people have been arrested in the case, said the police, including seven bootleggers from Amritsar, Batala and Tarn Taran in over 40 raids conducted by five teams on Friday.
According to the police, the first five fatalities were reported from Mucchal and Tangra villages in Amritsar on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday evening, two more people died under suspicious circumstances in Muchhal, and one person died at Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital in Amritsar after being shifted from Tangra. Batala too had reported two fatalities linked to consumption of illicit liquor on Thursday.