Dry Mizoram Continues To Be Dogged By Hooch Deaths

Aizawl, Feb 13 : Mizoram has been dry since February 20, 1997 with the powerful Church holding that Prohibition in the state has been a success, while boot-legging continues to thrive claiming 66 lives in the past 15 years.

The hooch deaths in the state are mainly caused by deliberate mixing of methyl spirits and varnish while brewing a local liquor called 'Zu'.

Dr Lalrozama, head of the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at the Civil Hospital here says that methyl spirits, a majority of them used in house construction and for polishing furniture, makes the local liquor deadly.

"The spirits are mixed with liquor while fermenting or afterwards to make the liquor stronger and make it more profitable for bootleggers," Dr Lalrozama says.

Another unique technique in Mizoram is the use of a kind of yeast called BEDC or simply BE made in Myanmar.

BEDC, a reddish powder, is mixed with a specified quantity of water for 24 hours which could then be easily mistaken as Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), Lalhlupuia, a journalist at Champhai town on the Mizoram-Myanmar border explains.

He says that simple villagers sometimes mistake BEDC as a magic potion that could transform water mixed with it into alcohol.