The last one month of the lockdown period has seen a spurt in booking of prohibition cases in Tiruchi Rural Police limits.
With a posse of police personnel deployed at check posts and other vantage locations all over the district to strictly enforce prohibitory orders and public remaining indoors, there has hardly been any report of chain snatching, say police sources.
The number of murder and attempt to murder cases booked since March 24 has been one each in Tiruchi Rural police limits which comprises of 31 law and order police stations; three All Women Police stations and a couple of Prohibition and Enforcement Wing units.
Besides a series of prohibition cases booked consequent to periodic raids against illicit distillation, cases on sand smuggling were also registered during the lockdown period.
Police statistics reveal that a total number of 283 cases under various head of offences were booked from March 24 to April 24.
Prohibition cases accounted for the maximum with the figure being 187. Twenty nine hurt cases and 23 sand smuggling cases were registered during the same period. The cases registered in respect of other offences were only in single digit which includes five under the POCSO Act; four under the NDPS Act; six under gambling, five theft cases; three for harassing women and one case of attempted robbery.
Closure of TASMAC liquor outlets due to the prohibitory orders and the urge to consume alcohol has led to brewing of illicit arrack in different parts of the district, say police sources. Instances of illegal stocking of TASMAC liquor bottles and its unauthorised sale have also surfaced during the lockdown period necessitating the police to step up surveillance.
Periodic raids by the local police along with Prohibition and Enforcement Units resulted in the seizure of over 2,000 litres of fermented wash, more than 500 litres of illicit arrack and over 100 litres of toddy from different villages in the district. Theft of
liquor bottles from TASMAC outlets prompted the TASMAC authorities to shift the entire stock from each liquor shop to chosen places in the district to keep them in safe custody with armed police protection.
Superintendent of Police, Tiruchi Ziaul Haque said ever since the prohibitory orders was clamped the law enforcers have been actively conducting raids at various locations to prevent brewing of illicit arrack. He added that the law enforcers were deploying drones to check illicit distillation in the interior rural pockets in Musiri sub division.
Prohibition raids had been conducted at places including Kattuputhur, Top Sengattupatti, Nathamadipatti, Kallakudi, Thottiyam, and Uppiliapuram.
The SP said report of other grave crime cases such as murder, attempt to murder and kidnap were negligible and no case of chain snatching was booked in the last one month. The lone murder case reported during this period was that of the killing of two minor girls
by their mother in Manapparai police station limits in which the victims were given soft drinks mixed with rat paste recently. As for road accidents reported during the same period, the number of fatal and non-fatal cases were three and 13 respectively.
