KERALA Unseen Coalition Partner O J LATH in the evening on September 1, when the inhabitants of Vypeen, a tiny picture postcard kind of island off the Cochin coast, came to know some people were dropping dead all over the place, nobody suspected that the deaths could have been due to liquor poison- ing and those who were dying anyway swore that they had consumed arrack from the authorised shops. Nevertheless the symptoms pointed just to that possibility, and soon, as more and more people succumbed, it became clear that these had indeed imbibed spurious liquor. The source of supply was soon traced a depot operated by a licensed liquor contractor, a political activist who was a member of the executive committee of the Kerala Congress (Joseph Group), a constituent of the United Front Ministry.
