The Bihar State Ex-Services League is organising a peaceful protest march from the Danapur cantonment area to Raj Bhavan on Friday taking exception to imposition of liquor laws on serving and retired army personnel.

Over 60 army personnel, retired as well as serving, have been arrested in the state since prohibition. Six of them are still in jail. "How can the government be so insensitive to the army, which protects the country? For us, liquor, mostly in the form of rum, is a kind of medicine," retired Captain Mohan Singh Rawat, a member of the ex-services league, said on Monday.

He said over 5000 ex-armymen would join the march. "We would meet the governor and give him a memorandum seeking to exempt armymen and ex-armymen from this law," the official said.

Eleven per cent of the country's armed forces personnel come from Bihar.

"As per an order issued by the defence ministry, ex-armymen are supposed to get canteen facilities," Captain Rawat said. "The state suddenly imposing total prohibition on serving as well as retired army personnel is nothing but unacceptable. Many defence personnel who don't even know about prohibition in Bihar, being posted far away, have been arrested on returning home on holiday. Six army men are languishing in Bihar's jails while others have managed bail.

Last month, the government railway police arrested a Captain-rank officer with two cartons of rum when he arrived in Hajipur. "Does the state government think the Captain was insane to be openly carrying rum despite a liquor ban in the state," the ex-services league member asked. "It is obvious he didn't know about it at all, being posted in an incommunicable part of the country. He was coming home on holiday when he was nabbed. A junior commissioned officer (JCO) gets a quota of six bottles a month. Officers in other ranks get 10 bottles. Under Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016, armymen have the liberty to drink inside the cantonment area. The state government should know that the cantonment area cannot be changed into a bar. Does the state government expect army personnel to drink their entire liquor quota in one day? Many ex-armymen live at far off places and cannot come to the cantonment everyday to drink," Rawat said.

"Why did the Nitish Kumar government open 6,000 liquor shops in the first place? His government has not banned toddy, as there is a vote bank attached to it. There are so many serious issues like employment, roads and industries, but all that has been ignored and a draconian prohibition law rules," Rawat said.