It seems that despite the fanstics and stick wielding religious retards roaming the province, many still risk all too have a good time! Good for them, thats the way to stick it to the mullah jerks.
Vigilantes alert, revellers defiant on New Year eve
By Ismail Khan
PESHAWAR, Dec 31: It is an exercise the police and the MMA vigilantes go through every New Year eve, with the police playing second fiddle to the zealots from Shabab-i-Milli, the Jamaat-i-Islami youth brigade, and the stick-wielding JUI-F activists.
Menacing statements, threatening revellers and merry-makers of dire consequences, start showing up in the vernacular Urdu press. The police join the chorus with equally menacing statements, threatening to teach New Year’s revellers a lesson or two in Islamic morality should they be seen driving around or playing loud music.
Rarely are the police put on high alert, unless there is a major sabotage incident. But New Year is one such event which invariably takes the police’s high priority.
But despite all threats and warnings from frothing vigilantes, bootleggers in Peshawar say their business has never been so good.
“It has never been this good,” boasted one of Peshawar’s main bootleggers, who wonders what has prompted this sudden surge for the booze in the provincial capital being ruled by the right wing religious alliance.
Last year, he recalled, he had trouble meeting the growing demand for alcohol.
“There were times when we were literally gasping for breath. It was like hopping from one stop to the other, dropping booze on our customer’s doorsteps. It was very good,” he said.
But one of the bootlegger’s many couriers with an eye on the market warn that New Year, coinciding with Eidul Azha, and ratcheting prices of sacrificial animals may affect alcohol sale.
“With the prices of sacrificial animals already very high, who would want to indulge in merry-making with pockets nearly empty,” he remarked.
Also, he pointed out, the prices of high-demand regular English Scotch had registered a 25 per cent increase over the last year.
A regular Scottish whisky that was sold at Rs1,800 last year is now available for Rs2,200 to Rs2,500. Surprisingly though, the prices of the famous 12-year-olds deluxe Scotch remained static at Rs3,500 to Rs4,000, he said.
The once-famous Russian Vodka, popular among students and middle-class boozers, has also registered a hike in price at Rs1,800.
“I don’t think we would be breaking our last year’s record business. But let’s wait and see, we have the evening ahead of us and we will see how sales proceed this year,” said a bootlegging carrier, involved in the business for long.
He said that his cartel faced more competition this year as new bootleggers had sprung up in Peshawar and the adjoining tribal regions, competing for business.
“Now just about every one has opened up a shop,” he said of the rival bootleggers. That, he opined, might have a sobering effect on the rates of foreign branded alcohol and bring down its prices.
As for the supply, he said, there had never been a problem, though at times there were temporary shortage of one particular brand or the other.
“But there are a few people who have any drinking preferences. Most of the time, they would like to get anything they can lay their hands on. Such is the desperation,” he added.
An insider said while the city’s main bootlegger continued to get the bulk of his supplies from Islamabad, there were those in neighbouring Afghanistan, who too wanted to make a quick buck or two and ensure that alcohol supply to bootleggers and boozers never dried up.
But it is not the availability or the price of booze that worries most revellers in Peshawar; it is the growing vigilantism and power of religious zealots which, they fear, spoil their evenings by keeping them on their tenterhooks.
And obviously, they say, they have been thinking and working overtime to ensure that there are no tell-tale signs to attract vigilantes’ attention.
So, while their drawing rooms and house basements would rattle with loud-music and cheers, every effort has been made to muffle down the noise, according to a reveller.
“It’s like a test of nerves. The vigilantes are out to spoil our evenings and we are determined to have fun, come what may! It’s been like this all these past few years, like a game of cat and mouse; and in the end, it’s us who get away with it,” he remarked gleefully.
