Patna: Five policemen were died on the spot while several others were critically injured when a speeding truck — allegedly carrying an illegal consignment of liquor — ran over them and sped away in India’s Bihar state.
The incident took place near Akuraha village in Muzaffarpur, some 80 kilometres north of Patna, late on Sunday night.
Liquor continues to flow in Bihar despite the state imposing a total ban more than 16 months ago.
Acting on information that a huge consignment of liquor was to enter the town during the night, a team of policemen began conducting searches on each vehicle passing through the specified route.
As they were searching one vehicle, the officers saw a container truck approaching and signalled the driver to stop.
Instead of slowing down, the truck picked up speed and ran over a group of officers standing on the middle of the road, killing five of them on the spot and critically wounding two others.
“Five policemen were killed on the spot as the speeding truck ran over them,” the local Muzaffarpur district superintendent of police Vivek Kumar told journalists on Monday.
According to the police, before fleeing the scene the driver also hit hard a road side car, damaging it badly. The collision was so powerful that the car flew in the air and threw some 10 metres away.
The slain officials were part of a team that was shouldered with the responsibility of cracking down on liquor syndicates by the state government.
According to an official report, 1.42 million litres of alcohol have been seized till April this year during the course of intensive raids conducted across the state, indicating how the illegal trade of liquor has continued to flourish despite ban.
Further embarrassing the state government a huge stock of around one million seized liquor bottles went mysteriously missing from police custody, with the police quick to blame “rats” for destroying the liquor.
