SAD slams Punjab govt for not providing medical care to victims of hooch tragedy

Senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia made the charge at a press conference along with the relatives of five people who lost their vision in the hooch tragedy. The spurious liquor tragedy in Punjab has killed 121 people in three districts.

The opposition Shiromani Akali Dal on Thursday accused the Punjab government of failing to provide medical care to the people who lost their vision allegedly after consuming spurious liquor. Senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia made the charge at a press conference along with the relatives of five people who lost their vision in the hooch tragedy.

The spurious liquor tragedy in Punjab has killed 121 people in three districts. The maximum 92 fatalities were reported from Tarn Taran, followed by 15 in Amritsar and 14 in Gurdaspur's Batala. At the press conference, relatives of two people claimed that they had to spend Rs 20,000 and Rs 42,000 respectively in private hospitals, while the family of another victim said they had to pay for injections while admitted at a government hospital in Tarn Taran.

The relatives claimed that no Congress legislator or district functionary visited them in hospital. Majithia, who was accompanied by former MLA Virsa Singh Valtoha, said it was shocking that Chief Minister Amarinder Singh did not meet families of those who were left permanently disabled in the hooch tragedy.

He alleged that the "insincerity" of the chief minister reflected in the subsequent lack of any effort by the district administration to provide medical aid to hooch tragedy victims who were admitted in various hospitals. "I want to ask the deputy commissioner what was more important than this. Why didn't he meet the victims' families and take care of their medical expenditure," Majithia asked.

The SAD leader demanded that the victims be given a compensation of Rs 20 lakh and a case of culpable homicide be registered against all those responsible for their disability..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)