Liquor is available to those who can pay for it, and usually this begins with the local police, who have to be paid
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: This Eid, more than 30 poor families lost their breadwinners in Karachi, after they died from drinking toxic liquor.
Generally, the victims belong to poor families and, therefore, the deaths go largely unnoticed. However, this time, the scale was so high that they could not be ignored and made for big news in the media. The question that we need to ask is: why are people in a country where alcohol is illegal and drinking banned, consuming alcohol in such large numbers and why are they doing it with liquor that is clearly lethal. Due to prohibition laws, locally produced and imported liquors are not available except to non-Muslims with government-issued permits.
However, in practice, liquor is available to those who can pay for it, and usually this begins with the local police, who have to be paid. All of this drives up the price to a very high level such that only the affluent can purchase it — off the black market. This also means that the poor have to contend with liquor of very questionable quality and the result is all before us.
Surely, we cannot pretend anymore that this problem does not exist — this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened and will not be the last either.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, October 13th, 2014.
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