Meerut: Out of total 25,717 booked during a month-long crackdown on public drinking across Uttar Pradesh, Meerut zone accounted for a whopping 13,452 tipplers (over 50% of the total) booked for the offence. Lucknow zone was a distant second with 3,165 booked for public drinking. Over 50,000 litres of alcohol was also seized from the offenders.Meerut zone’s top spot in the crackdown reflects on the culture of "police patronage" to public drinking, especially in the vicinity of liquor shops. In Meerut’s Ganganagar, public drinking is a common sight at a liquor shop which has a police station at a stone’s throw. At jail chungi crossing in city, barely 200 metres from Meerut ADG office, tipplers dot the road at dusk.“Vehicles come and park as if it is a designated spot for drinking. Somehow all these spots have poor lighting which adds to the ambiance tipplers seek for their evenings,” Pradeep Kumar, a resident of Civil Lines, said.Sources claim that local police patrol vehicles, getting their “cut” from liquor shop owners, turn a blind eye to the nuisance in the vicinity of these shops. Several cases of brawl and violence have also been reported from these dark spots in the city, but the local authorities are yet to take any concrete step to address the issue.“This menace is not new to the area and we have been struggling to keep a tab on it despite our efforts through regular crackdowns. We will take more such steps in future,” additional director general (Meerut) Prashant Kumar said.Public drinking is a common sight in almost all the districts of Meerut zone, including Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur. Authorities claim that exiting laws are not deterrent enough. “At most, we can issue challan to offenders when caught. There is no provision under which we can arrest them. We plan to increase police presence through patrolling during the evening at all such places,” SSP Rajesh Kumar Pandey said.

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