‘If we see anyone selling illicit liquor, we will bash them up’

Karunapuram — a thickly populated residential pocket in Tamil Nadu’s Kallakurichi town — is now a village of hooch widows. Ten days ago, more than 40 of them lost their husbands to methanol-laced liquor sold in plastic pouches.
It’s not just grief that is writ large on their faces but also anger that their repeated pleas to officials to stop people from brewing and selling the spurious liquor fell on deaf ears.Some of them are ready to dismantle the hooch dens themselves if the authorities fail to do so.
“We are fed up. There has to be an end to this. We don’t want kids to become addicts like their fathers,” says a young widow. “This time, we won’t be waiting around for govt to act. If we come across anyone selling arrack, we will bash up and destroy their units. After this tragedy, we have the support of people.”
K Manikandan, a 33-year-old loadman at the Karunapuram vegetable market, was among those who died. His second wife, M Radha, 36, is two months pregnant and inconsolable. “What will I say when my child asks about the father? I don’t have the strength to tell my child that he died of consuming spurious liquor, and that I failed to make him kick the habit,” she says. Radha’s elder daughter is in Class VI. Manikandan also has two children from his first wife M Savithri (33).
“He used to consume arrack, but stopped. Then he started again. It was his habit and that of other men in the locality. Finally, the arrack took their lives,” says Savithri.
Alcohol has often been a hot-button political issue in Tamil Nadu as its sale is controlled by the govt. Since locally brewed moonshine is much cheaper than that available in state- controlled shops, the poor gravitate towards this illicit brew. Most of those who died in the tragedy were daily-wage workers. One of them was S Madan, a 45-year-old painter and sole breadwinner of his family of five — wife Ilayarani,37, two daughters aged 19 and 20, and a 15-year-old son.
The free availability of illicit liquor in the locality is no secret. “It has been ruining families for the past two decades. Officials are not the least bothered about this illegal business as they get good financial returns from it,” says a political activist living in Karunapuram, on condition of anonymity.
A widow who did not wish to be identified says it’s not easy to speak up. “The bootleggers have the support of all the influential people — whether it’s politicians or govt officials, including those in excise, prohibition and police departments. Not just that, many people in the locality support the brewing and sale of illicit liquor, and even threaten us whenever we identify the culprits and complain,” she says.
Though the scale of this tragedy shocked everyone, alcohol-related problems aren’t isolated to this town. A recent report released by social organisation ‘Kalangarai,’ based in Nagapattinam, found that of the 495 widows studied in Tamil Nadu, nearly half of them (188) lost their husbands to alcohol addiction and its related complications.
In 2023, more than 20 people died after they consumed spurious liquor in Villupuram and Chengalpet districts.
Chief minister M K Stalin informed the Assembly on Friday that the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act of 1937 will undergo amendments to impose stricter penalties on those involved in brewing and bootlegging illicit liquor. Also, 562 village committees have been established in the district to prevent the sale of arrack and drugs. Led by village administrative officers, these committees include village assistants, anganwadi workers, beat patrol constables, and woman health volunteers to monitor and report illegal activities related to the production, storage, transportation, and sale of illicit liquor, drugs, and tobacco products.