Bihar has been declared a dry state earlier this year by the elected Nitish Kumar government. Nitish Kumar had in April announced a complete ban on alcohol in the state with immediate effect, raising a debate on whether such bans actually help in solving crime and other issues in Bihar. But a case of mysterious deaths of 13 people has come to light, wherein the families of the deceased say that it was due to consumption of liquor. Relatives of the victims  mostly vegetables vendors and daily wage workers  confirmed death because of drinking liquor. Gopalganj District Magistrate Rahul Kumar, said they would wait for postmortem report to conclusively tell reasons of feath.

 

The district administration has formed three teams to probe reasons of the deaths. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has claimed there has been a drastic decline in percentage of crimes in the last two months after complete prohibition of alcohol was imposed in the state. "Heinous crimes have come down by 15% in last two months," he told a function in the temple town of Gaya. “We have sent blood samples for forensic examination. We are also awaiting postmortem reports. Unless we get the reports, we cannot confirm the reason of deaths,” Gopalganj district magistrate Rahul Kumar said. The DM said all cases were reported to the hospital from different areas of the district. The district administration claimed that while one death was reported after a person consumed sulfas tablets, another person was suffering from tetanus.