Deadly Consumption: Commissioner cracks down on toxic alcohol

KARACHI: Commissioner Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui ordered a crackdown against the people supplying and selling home-brewed liquor containing toxic chemicals. The menace has to be countered immediately, said the commissioner. “We cannot afford to waste any time and, keeping in mind previous incidents, we must ensure that toxic alcohol is neither allowed to be produced nor supplied or put on sale anywhere in the metropolis,” he said. He urged officials to keep a strict vigil and deploy police to the areas and lanes in which toxic alcohol is sold. The sale of these hazardous drinks increases during festivals mainly in slums, he warned. “It is mainly the inhabitants of slums who easily fall prey and they previously too have been found to be victims losing lives on consumption of homemade wine laced with hazardous chemicals such as methanol,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2015.