Kabisuryanagar: Three villages under Kabisurynagar police limits in Ganjam district slipped into turmoil after angry locals torched and ransacked liquor shops and beat up a policeman after an anti-liquor activist was assaulted by an IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) shop owner at A Barida, Wednesday.
These was palpable tension in Kushapalli, A Barida and Bhatapada after anti-liquor activist Brahmananda Achari was attacked as irate women who were demanding prohibition marched to the liquor outlet and set it ablaze Wednesday evening.
According to sources, Achari who was opposed to mushrooming of liquor outlets in the area was returning to his house Wednesday when the liquor shop owner and his henchmen waylaid him and beat him up. This agitated the residents in the locality who had earlier vowed to demolish liquor shops with the help of earthmovers.
Kabisuryanagar IIC Prabhat Kumar Sahu, Balichhai OIC Uma Charan Praharaj and fire department personnel reached the spot and tried to placate the irate women.
Hundreds of women and youths of Bhatapada ransacked a country liquor shop before torching it at A Barida Thursday morning. Later the agitators from A Barida, Bhatapada and Kushapali villages marched towards Marathi Basa near Kusapalli and set ablaze another liquor shop and four houses in the area.
Balichhai OIC Praharaj tried to dissuade the agitators from torching the liquor outlet but the latter beat him up and detained him for hours. Police personnel from Kodala, Aska, Polsara and Buguda rushed to the spot but tension refused to die down.
PNN