Bhopal: Days after Uma Bharti vandalised liquor shop, new shop to open in same area

Bhopal, March 30 (IANS) Two weeks after senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti hurled a stone at a liquor shop in Bhopal's Barkheda Pathani area, a new wine shop is set to operate in the locality.

A wine shop is under construction where the sale of both local made and foreign liquor will begin from April 1. This is despite the local residents, including women, staging a protest against the new liquor shop.

There are already two or three liquor shops in different locations of Barkhera Pathani area and the new shop is close to the residential colony. The new shop will hardly be 200 meters away from an existing liquor shop on the road connecting Awadhpuri residential colony and Barkhera Pathani.

Women in nearby residential colonies have objected to the new liquor shop saying the old one was far from the residential colonies but the new one is hardly 200 meters from West Block of Avadhuri. "We had protested against it, but no one heard us. We fear that incidents of misbehaviour with women will start here also like in other areas where liquor shops are running in residential colonies," says a group of women in the West Block of Advadhpuri.

Bharti, who has been demanding total prohibition in the party-ruled Madhya Pradesh, had recently written to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan reminding him of his promise to run an awareness campaign against use of liquor and drugs.

The former union minister had then warned the local administration to get the liquor shop shut within a week. She had pelted a stone smashing liquor bottles in a shop located in Azadpur locality under Barkhera Pathani on March 13.