TOXIC LIQUOR DEATH TOLL CROSSES 100, 14 ARRESTED
NEW DELHI: The death toll from a liquor poisoning in north-eastern state of Assam rose to 102 on Saturday even as doctors tried desperately to save critically ill patients.
The victims, almost all tea plantation workers in the Golaghat and Jorhat districts, drank the tainted liquor on Thursday evening.
At least 22 people had died by Friday night and the death toll soared on Saturday in what has become one of the country’s worst bootleg alcohol incidents in recent years.
The deaths have prompted a crackdown to nab those behind the illicit liquor trade. While 59 people were killed in Golaghat, another 43 died in neighbouring Jorhat, according to Dhiren Hazarika and Roshni Aparanji Korati, both senior officials from the respective districts.
More than 150 people were still admitted at hospitals complaining of breathlessness, vomiting and stomach pain, the officials said.
Television footage showed relatives wailing at the loss of their loved ones in villages as locals took out bodies from inside homes and loaded them onto an open truck headed for the mortuary.
“Two bodies are still lying outdoors uncared for in a nearby area. We’ve seen people rush their critical relatives to hospitals in auto-rickshaws. It is a horrible, traumatic time,” a local told reporters in Golaghat district.
Initial investigations revealed that the drink contained methanol, which is fatal when consumed in large amounts. Methanol is added to brews to increase potency, but in very small doses.
Police were carrying out raids to stop the sale of illicit liquor. Ten small brewing units were “destroyed” and 14 men linked with the manufacture and distribution of the tainted liquor had been arrested, officials added. Hundreds of litres of liquor have also been seized.
In some of the worst cases of such poisoning, 200 people died in 1992 in Odisha state and 180 in West Bengal in 2011.
Less than two weeks ago, more than 100 people died in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand after drinking tainted liquor.