Kannur: Mar Joseph Pamplany, Metropolitan Archbishop of Archdiocese of Tellicherry, criticized the liquor policy of the State government while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the concluding session of KCBC Madhya Virudha (Anti-Liquor) Committee’s State Conference.

His Excellency said, “for Pinarayi, it (wine) is intoxicating liquor, however for us (Christians) it is the symbol of the blood of Jesus.”

He recalled the words of Pinarayi Vijayan, mocking the Catholic Church while announcing the liquor policy. Pinarayi had then remarked that, 'We are giving permission to the priests to process wine'.

It is saddening to see that the government is leaning on that precious blood and trying to justify the flow of liquor in the state, asserted the Archbishop.

The Pinarayi government, which came to power promising that alcohol would be banned in the state step by step, is now flooding it with liquor.

Mar Joseph Pamplany also demanded that if the government or the leading front was sincere in reducing the availability of alcohol, it should cancel the ten-fold increase in the number of pubs that sprang up in the six years since it came to power and apologize to the people.