Truck accident leads to drunken revelry

KANPUR: A truck accident turned into revelry for guzzlers in Fatehpur district. The truck was carrying nearly 900 cartons of branded liquor to Patna from a distillery at Gwalior. It overturned near Adharpur village in Khaga tehsil of Fatehpur on Sunday. As the news spread, people from nearby villages thronged the spot, looted around 150 cartons of liquor and had a party time.
The chaos started after a truck skidded off the road and fell into a roadside ditch near Adharpur village. The driver, identified as Devi Dayal and his attendant Guddu, went to inform cops deployed at nearby Mahicha police out-post about the accident, the locals escaped with 150 cartons.
According to police, the truck was carrying branded liquor cartons from a distillery in Gwalior to Patna. "The truck was loaded with 900 cartons of popular Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL). It met with an accident and skidded off near Adharpur after the driver felt drowsy," Khaga Kotwali incharge Suresh Chandra Tewari said.
As soon as the news spread, people from Adharpur and several neighbouring villages rushed to the spot and looted the liquor bottles.
Eyewitness said that it was a free-for-all. The villagers and passers-by grabbed as many bottles as they could carry. It led to traffic jam for over one hour.
The driver mentioned in the FIR that hundreds of villagers and passers-by escaped with IMFL cartons within no time. Witnesses claimed some loaded the cartons in cars.
Prahlad Singh added, "Even people in cars and SUVs passing through the highway loaded cartons and escaped."
The situation was such that the labourers working in nearby private industrial units arrived at the spot to grab liquor bottles. Police finally arrived at the spot to control the situation.
Tiwari said: "We are in the process of recovering looted liquor cartons. A case has been registered.”