Villagers hand over brewing kits to police

ABOUT thirty people from Kuminibis village, Maprik in East Sepik have surrendered equipment and instruments used to brew moonshine (homebrew) to police on Monday.
The surrender was part of an agreement among the community leaders, police mobile squad (MS) unit 13 and the Maprik police during a mediation last Thursday.
The mediation followed a community unrest that almost cost the closure of the Balupwina Primary School.
Maprik police station commander Damian Linus said investigation by police had identified alcohol as the root of the riot.
Linus said the producers of homebrew were given three days grace period since last Friday to surrender all their equipment to police.
He was unhappy with the number of people who surrendered their equipment during the mediation on Monday, as there were a lot more brewers in the community.
He told the community that police would now take a strong stance.
“Due to no cooperation we have no choice but to take the tougher stance to make immediate arrests,” Linus said. “Charges will be laid to those found brewing, consuming and selling the home brewed wine.”
MS 13 Commander Sergeant Tennyson Joseph said that the unrest was unlawful and homebrew is illegal.
Joseph said home brewing of alcohol was an illegal act and would be addressed with tougher approaches.
“We are engaged by the Maprik DDA to work together with the Maprik Police to clean out Maprik and we will do just that,” Joseph said.