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| India-Pakistan |
| 'Liquor widows' smash dens |
| 2009-02-18 |
| SURAT: A dry revolution is brewing in the villages of south Gujarat. Armed with lathis, a group of women is storming country-liquor breweries and destroying them. Since January, the women have destroyed over 100 liquor breweries in Surat district. And this is not moral policing. Most of these 300-odd women have seen their alcoholic husbands die a painful death. They do not want more women to suffer similar fate. In the first week of January, about 20 liquor breweries were destroyed in Mahuva taluka. “Initially we organised talks to sensitise members in small groups. Once they were ready, we submitted memorandum requesting the police to clamp down on breweries,” said Hemuben Patel, an Anganwadi worker in Samba village, who lost her husband three years ago following illness due to liquor consumption. But, when no action was taken, these women decided to act on their own. “We started attacking liquor breweries in large groups,” she said. It started with the group destroying 20 liquor breweries in the first week of January in villages of Mahuva taluka. Soon, around 2,000 women took out rallies and targeted liquor shops and thrashed bootleggers in Vehval village. The movement started to spread in other villages like Samba, Valvada, Tarkani, Umra, Vachhavad, Puna, Dhalkari and Kharvan. “The movement is still on in rural areas. It is a politically-motivated movement,” said KS Bhati, superintendent of police, Surat. Women, on the other hand blame the administration for going slow on bootleggers. “Breweries have come up again at many places,” says Sumitra Patel of Vehval village. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #5 Gujarat, the home-state of Mahatma Gandhi, is actually a dry state. Liquor cannot be legally sold there. |
| Posted by: john frum 2009-02-18 17:34 |
| #4 Skidmark and .5: if you're trying sarcasm here, it's not working. These breweries don't sell "shaken, not stirred." They sell unregulated rotgut that is frequently poisonous. |
| Posted by: mom 2009-02-18 16:20 |
| #3 Paging carrie nation, carrie nation to the white courtesy phone please. |
| Posted by: N guard 2009-02-18 07:43 |
| #2 Run em over with an F-150! |
| Posted by: .5MT 2009-02-18 05:46 |
| #1 terrorism, pure and simple! |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2009-02-18 05:27 |