Mafia Wants Prohibition in Gujarat to Stay

• Ahmedabad: Speaking of the profound need to stick to Gandhian principles at any cost, especially prohibition, singularly the most important prerequisite to run a highly successful bootlegging business while simultaneously keeping up the façade of spiritual commitment, occasional lip-service and hypocritical one-upmanship of the birth-State of the Mahatma, Harishankar Kahar, bootlegging mafia kingpin of Gujarat, dared the government to try to dabble with the dry law.
  
  "If anyone at anytime says there is anything more important than sticking to Gandhian principles, especially the law ensuring that legal liquor business must never come to the State of Gujarat, which will wreck the last link between common people and the ideals of the Mahatma, besides almost overnight destroying his business empire… then, for the sake of the Mahatma, his ideals and my billions, I will oppose it," he said, gesturing threateningly, after being nabbed by the Crime Branch and sent to police custody.
  
  "Our country is a state of moral flux," said his deputy, who also looks after the Don’s allied businesses associated with the core bootlegging, including extortion, kidnapping, bribing and intimidating officials and eliminating rivals, "today is one day, when we have to reinvigorate our affirmation and will to continue to walk on the Mahatma’s path… of state-enforced prohibition, with an understanding of modern needs and bringing in a highly organised bootlegging mafia."
  
  Continuing to showcase their devotion to the path of the Mahatma, the Mafioso duo took full responsibility of the death of people, Gujarat’s worst moonshine tragedy which killed 136 till reporting time, since the 1989 tragedy when 132 people died in Vadodara, saying the accident was unfortunate.
  
  "This industrial accident would not happen if the government backed its policy of prohibition with a full-fledged recognition of the bootlegging industry, by providing us with bank loans, licenses to build better illegal breweries, and a license system, by which the wrong kind of players cannot become bootlegger and bring shame on us all."
  
  In line with the ideals of the Mahatma, they have promised fullest cooperation with the government investigations, "the moment we heard that the government felt embarrassed with the tragedy, we have helped the police stage manage our own arrests, allowing them to destroy some of our outdated facilities in front of media glare, and generally giving the people the impression that the police is effective."
  
  Asking for introspection, the don asked, "on a single day, Gujarat police closed down 1,200 liquor dens and arrested over 800 brewers of illegal liquor, not to mention the crackdown on over 50 medium-sized bootlegging entrepreneurs. Do you think it is possible they investigated and found all this out in like, what, six hours?"
  
  On an introspective note, speaking about the need for quality in bootlegging industry, the don said, "We need the government’s help in ensuring liquor quality, so that people don’t die. Going blind or getting paralysed or some such thing is fine, but we condemn death. But the government must put a limit on police extortion to enable us to give quality stuff and survive as an equal opportunity industry."
  
  Seeking a total ban on the country’s legal liquor businesses, handing them over in a phased manner to the bootlegging mafia, a total national-level prohibition, coordination between government, ministers, MPs and MLAs, politicians, police, criminals and mafia, they said, "together, we are all responsible for hypocritically implementing everything that Gandhiji stood for on the one hand, and run an effective
  alternate, shady economy on the other. Let not Gujarat, or any other state or Center, dilute the commitment to Gandhian ideals, or finding pragmatic alternatives on the sidelines."
  
  Asked if the mafia was ready to take charge of practical sides of things if other bans were imposed in India in line with Gandhian ideals, including ban on beef consumption, weapons, guns, tobacco, gutkha, or condoms, they said, "we thrive on bans. Each time the government bans a legitimate business not in line with Gandhian thought, we can and will rise to the challenge. And yes, committed to views of Gandhiji, what we said just now is truth. Simple, absolute truth."