Keonjhar, Nov 3: Hundreds of women of a remote village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district performed ‘Bhagabata Puja’ on Sunday to end the alleged illegal liquor trade and alcohol consumption in their locality.

According to sources, the women of Podang village under Telkoi block in Keonjhar district have been protesting the sale of illicit liquor in their areas, but in vain. After all their efforts failed, hundreds of women assembled today and conducted ‘Bhagabata Puja’ to create awareness against alcohol sale and consumption in the village.

The special puja was performed by the “Dehuri” and the priest of the Jagagannath Temple of the village. On this occasion, paddy and “khai” collected from each household of the village was thrown. Some alcohol consumers were also made to attend the puja ceremony and vow to never drink again.

The women believe that whoever disobeys the puja rules will be cursed by the Almighty and will suffer loss in the future.

“Male members of the family, particularly husbands, are creating chaos in their houses by drinking alcohol. The husbands are taking money from their wives forcefully, in some cases they are selling PDS ration goods, even asking money received from Subhadra Yojana and drinking alcohol. As a result, people get sick and die prematurely. Seeing this, the women have decided to hold the special puja and swear on the holy book that no one will neither sell nor drink liquor in our village,” said a woman.

In Telkoi block, one foreign liquor off shop and two country-made liquor shops have been operating with government’s permission, while more than 40 foreign liquor shops and more than 200 country-liquor shops are opened in different villages across the block, she alleged.

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