Tonight on Foreign Correspondent, ABC’s Meghna Bali reports from Bihar, India, where a decade-long alcohol ban has led to the growth of a dangerous underground bootlegging network.
Despite the intention to reduce domestic violence, the ban has resulted in devastating consequences, with unregulated and often poisonous alcohol causing death and disability in local communities.
From ABC:
Imagine a state where all alcohol is banned, without exception. Where you would go to jail for months for possessing a single drop.
Welcome to Bihar, India where the world’s largest “prohibition experiment” is taking place. Booze has been banned in the state for the past decade – a move designed to curb high rates of domestic violence.
But the ban has driven the production of alcohol underground resulting in a thriving bootleg industry with deadly consequences.
On Foreign Correspondent the ABC’s South Asia Bureau Chief Meghna Bali travels to Bihar where she goes on patrol with the bootleg police in rugged rural terrain as they hunt for illegal liquor networks.
She secretly meets the bootleggers and smugglers who risk lengthy jail terms if they are caught selling alcohol.
And she witnesses the devastating impact poisonous “alcohol” is having in some communities where death and disability are the result of a prohibited, unregulated industry.
