This is fairly new worry for the authorities in Bihar. While the common men have given up drinking in the aftermath of the state government imposing total ban on sale and consumption of liquor in the state, the rats have turned boozy!
The startling revelation came to light on Monday when the authorities in Kaimur district opened the store room to destroy the illegal liquor stocks seized during the raids in the past two years.
It was during the physical verification of liquor stocks that dozens of beer cans were found to be empty with big holes visible in their caps. Officials claimed the rats sipped the alcohols by gnawing at beer cans and making holes in the caps.
“Well this is the handiwork of the rats. Prime facie it appears the rats made holes into the beer caps with their sharp teeth to sip alcohol. We can say with certainty since all the seized cartons were found to be still safely packed but only the alcohol missing from the cans,” local subdivisional magistrate Kumari Anupam Singh said.
According to her, they have destroyed the cartons but still verifying how many beer cans and liquor bottles were destroyed by tipsy rats. Local excise superintendent Pradeep Kumar, however, said the rodents might have destroyed alcohol worth about Rs 10,000. As per reports, a total of 11,584 bottles of liquor were stored in the storeroom.
Last year too, the rats had been blamed for feasting on alcohol worth lakhs of rupees in police malkhanas.
The story came to light when the local Patna SSP Manu Maharaj inquired about the status of confiscated liquor.
Much to his surprise, however, he was told by majority of the cops that most of the seized liquor stocks have been guzzled by the “drunkard” rats!
And, when the SSP asked how the rats could do, the cops had the readymade answer: “Sir, using their razor sharp incisors, they easily make holes in the caps of liquor bottle or beer cans and drink alcohol kept in the storehouses.” It was in the light of this incident that the state government later ordered for destroying the seized liquor stocks.