Within minutes, 21-year-old Bilawal, the sole breadwinner of his six-member family, was reduced to a statistic: he joined the list of 21 people in a fortnight who perished due to consuming tharo — a locally-manufactured rum that turned toxic.

Bilawal belonged to the town of Nasarpur, some 50kms away from Hyderabad. He was merely sitting with friends after work to forget the day’s hardships. Later in the night, he first lost his eyesight. By the time he was taken to the district headquarters hospital in Tando Allahyar, he had already breathed his last.

“People bring this sort of patient only when the case turns critical,” said a doctor at the Tando Allahyar Civil Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They prefer to go to quacks first as they fear any legal action or possible humiliation. If they would just bring patients in a little earlier, the number of causalities would reduce drastically.”

The increasing demand of tharo has led manufacturers to add chemicals to hasten its preparation process. But without any checks on quality, the number of deaths are only rising

Tharo is a popular form of liquor in interior Sindh as it is very cheap and is easy to prepare. Predominantly made by women, tharo is usually prepped at home. A typical bottle of tharo would include gur (jaggery), bark of a kikar/babul tree (Acacia nilotica), dried orange peels, fertilisers, tranquilising pills and some other herbs. They are then cooked together in a clay pot over low heat. The mixture is then allowed to ferment for about seven to 10 days. The end product is referred to as tharo in the local lingo. A plastic bag containing 200ml of tharo is sold at a measly price of Rs150.

It isn’t just the toxicity of the ingredients that causes problems; the unhygienic manner in which this liquor is prepared causes innumerable intestinal and renal disorders. Many believe that timely media coverage of the crisis could have saved many lives. The argument often is that while deaths due to the consumption of toxic liquor have taken place across Hyderabad division, the issue only received widespread attention when two people died in the suburbs of Hyderabad.

In earlier times, tharo was prepared and consumed largely by the Kohli and Menghwars farming communities. Both belong to the Hindu minority in Sindh. It was such a part of the local culture that Hassan Dars, a leading Sindhi poet had penned a verse, the translation of which reads as, ‘As dusk falls, all the Kohlies open their pots and sip tharo in order to break the shackles of slavery tied to their necks.’ In present times, however, the increasing consumption of illegal liquor has proven to be catastrophic for the people of Southern Sindh, breaking up families by killing their young ones.

In earlier times, tharo was prepared and consumed largely by the Kohli and Menghwars farming communities. Both belong to the Hindu minority in Sindh. It was such a part of the local culture that Hassan Dars, a leading Sindhi poet had penned a verse, the translation of which reads as, ‘As dusk falls, all the Kohlies open their pots and sip tharo in order to break the shackles of slavery tied to their necks.’

According to Nasir Nohrio, a reporter for a Sindhi-language news channel in Tando Allahyar, “This liquor turned fatal due to changes in its preparation process. Instead of letting the drink go through a week-long fermentation process, people now mix a chemical into the drink and get the final product in a day. This has given a boost to their business.”

Others believe that it is impure alcohol smuggled from sugar mills by their workers and sold to the people who are involved in the tharo-making business that has contributed to the recent rise in deaths. Jabran Leghari, a social activist who works for an NGO agrees with this explanation: “Raw alcohol obtained from sugar mills hastens the otherwise very slow liquor synthesis process. By mixing the alcohol it has now become a readily made product available in a desired quantity all the time.”

Although the police conducted a massive crackdown on tharo-making businesses, shutting down and dismantling makeshift industries where this toxic liquor was being prepared in Tando Allahyar, it has had little effect on the number of casualties which only seem to be rising by the day.

Meanwhile, an air of gloom has descended upon Nasrapur as it lost yet another member of its community to the perils of consuming toxic liquor. Bhemoon Kolhi, whose younger brother died from consuming poisonous liquor before he reached the hospital, laments that, “I was helpless both at stopping him from his addiction and telling the truth to the doctor.”

It is a tragic state of affairs indeed.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, November 16th, 2014