Suspended Bihar MLC's house sealed

Even as the main suspect in the road rage death, Rocky Yadav, was remanded to police custody for two days on Wednesday, his mother suspended Janata Dal United MLC Manorama Devi remained at large.

 The police and excise officials on Wednesday searched her residence in Gaya’s Anugrah Puri Colony but could not trace the absconding legislator, against whom an arrest warrant has been issued for keeping liquor bottles in the house. The officials sealed her house following lodging of an FIR under Section 47 of the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016.

The police had earlier recovered 6 bottles of liquor while searching her residence in search of her fugitive son Rocky. Though the police initially did not press charges of violation of prohibition against her, but within hours of her suspension from the JD (U) on Tuesday evening, the Bihar government issued orders to arrest her following recovery of Indian Made Foreign liquor (IMFL) from her palatial house.

Since then, Manorama Devi, the second-term MLC, is reported to have gone underground.

Under the new Excise Act, if liquor is found in someone’s house, the house could be sealed and auctioned. “It was mandatory for excise officials to seal the house of Manorama Devi from where six bottles of liquor were seized,” said a senior official of Excise and Prohibition Department.

Since April 5, when the prohibition came into force in Bihar, the legislators of the state had pledged neither they will consume liquor nor allow anyone else to do so.

Ironically, liquor was recovered from the ruling party legislator’s house in Gaya causing huge embarrassment to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is now advocating the ban of liquor in other states also.