Rural women hold massive protest seeking liquor ban

Bengaluru:  Around 2000 women from various parts of Karnataka on Wednesday took out a padayatra and jail bharo Andolan from Malleshwaram to Vidhana Soudha demanding a ban on the sale of liquor in the state.

Prasanna an activist said that on 30th January, the day Mahatma Gandhi was martyred, women have marched towards Bengaluru and lay siege to Vidhana Soudha.  People’s movement, organisations, students groups and youths thinkers have also joined hands with the organisers to strengthened their struggle. 

Prasanna further said that women want liquor to be banned in the state and they don’t mind going to jail for this. It was indeed very heartening to see women walking with their children in the hot sun and old people too are walking with them.

Another activist Abhay said that as many as 3000 women had participated in the movement which started from Chitradurga on January 19. The reasons for the protest against the sale of liquor is because of the domestic violence happening to the women in rural areas by their drunken husbands. 

Freedom fighter H. S. Doreswamy said that he will request Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to ban liquor by October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti). The movement will not stop till the women get justice, he threatened.

Theatre personality Arundhati Nag also joined the protest.