A liquor truck enroute to the Selatuwa government wine shop under the Chainpur Police Station of the Palamau district met with an accident on Thursday at the Semra village, when it hit an elderly man and toppled down right after that.

Assistant Superintendent of Police, Palamau, K. Vijay Shankar, while talking about the incident, said as a result of the accident, packs of government wine got scattered on the road.

While several bottles got destroyed, a good number of them remained intact and this gave the local villagers a chance to steal the alcohol lying on the road.

Sources said a huge number of villagers gathered at the site and began collecting the bottles for New Year festivities, having never dreamt of such an opportunity.

Ram Pukar, a passerby who was crossing the area, said there was sort of a competition among the villagers as to who could collect more numbers of bottles, with some villagers even asking their children to pick them up.

Talking about the accident, Chainpur Police Station officer-in-charge Uday Kr. Gupta said that the man who was hit by the van was taken to a hospital.

The driver and other members on board fled the scene, leaving the van abandoned there, he said.

The liquor was lifted from Daltonganj to ship to the Salatuwa government wine shop, the OC said

Gupta further informed that the police has registered a road accident case, while adding that the villagers were in a hurry to collect the free alcohol.

Shankar said that the invoice for the consignment of the wine was worth Rs 1.70 lakhs and the van was carrying 90 crates of alcohol. He explained that it was not illicit liquor.