Aligarh hooch tragedy toll may be much higher than thought

AGRA: With six more deaths confirmed, the toll in the Aligarh hooch tragedy reached 35 on Monday, even as many fear the numbers could rise to 80.

“The viscera of all 80 bodies, whose postmortem was conducted, has been sent for testing to Forensic Lab in Agra for further confirmation,” said chief medical officer (CMO) Aligarh Dr BPS Kalyani.

Meanwhile, joint excise commissioner for Agra zone Ravi Shankar Pathak and deputy excise commissioner, Aligarh division, OP Singh has been suspended with immediate effect.

Officials said the departmental action had been initiated against them on the orders of Sanjay Bhoosreddy, additional chief secretary (excise).

“There had been 80 postmortems conducted on suspicion of death because of spurious liquor and in 35 there were strong evidence about presence of alcohol. As such, viscera of all 80 dead bodies have been sent for testing at Forensic Lab in Agra to ascertain exact number of deaths,” said Chandra Bhushan Singh, district magistrate (DM), Aligarh. On Monday morning, three died in Mohalla Chandania in Aligarh while three died in Dhanipur area.

Meanwhile, the Aligarh police arrested Bipin Yadav, the accused carrying reward of Rs 50,000. On clues given by him, raids were conducted in industrial area of Aligarh and 203 drums of ethyl alcohol, spirit and harmful chemicals were seized from a factory.

Factory owner Vijendra Kapoor and accountant Rakesh Sharma were arrested.

On the other hand, licenses of 16 liquor vends were suspended as they belonged to those found involved in hooch tragedy.

Meanwhile, opposition parties on Monday alleged discrepancies in the official death toll in the Aligarh hooch tragedy and that last rites of many victims had been conducted without a post-mortem examination.

Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Zamirullah Khan produced before the media the families of 12 people who he claimed died over the past three days after consuming spurious liquor and whose last rites were conducted “under pressure without a postmortem examination”.

Leaders of the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) and the Congress claimed that there are several such cases and that the local administration was “hiding facts”. The toll in the hooch tragedy climbed to 36 on Monday with 11 more deaths being confirmed by the district authorities.

However, the number of deaths may rise as viscera reports of 35 others who are suspected to have died after consuming the spurious liquor are awaited.