My attention has been drawn for last 3 (three) days Press Report about discrepancy of 2054 cases of seized IMFL/Beer from Excise department at Dimapur. The Excise department has seized of 4448 cases of IMFL/Beer on different occasions at Dimapur which has been published in the Newspaper as an achievement by the department.
First of all seizure of such a huge quantity of liquor in the Dimapur Town speaks the total failure of prohibition in Nagaland. Nagaland has been declared as ‘Dry State’ in 1988. Since then the liquors are seized by different government agencies and NGOs within Nagaland as an achievement. If the liquors are seized in the enter-state border with Assam, I will agree that Nagaland is implementing prohibition law. However the liquors are seized inside Nagaland which means the law enforcing agencies are allowed to transport inside Nagaland without any checking in the entry point.
This reflects that the prohibition is total failure in Nagaland and we need to introspect and re-visit the policy. The ACAUT alleged that 2054 cases of IMFL/Beer were found missing on 26th May 2014 destruction day. Such huge discrepancy is arise very often during destruction because as per the police explanation hundreds and thousands cases are lost at Police Station by Rat because all the Rats in Nagaland are alcoholic and there is no law to punish the Rats.
Secondly, after the seizer the law enforcing agency transported the seized liquor to Malkhana for storage but 50% of the seized were lost in the transportation because they are not skill labour. The reply given by Shri. Maongwati, Excise Commissioner is wrong because he said that there is no discrepancy of seized liquor on the destruction day. However, he admitted that the Excise personnel needs transparent and training for which he is arranging training course from USA. I wish he learnt from police for such lost in Malkhana and transportation of seized liquor in future.
Y. Anung
Kohima Town
