Consumption of toxic alcohol has caused death of about 99 people and scores hospitalised in northern India on 11th February. The incident reported in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for over the past three days has triggered a massive crackdown against bootleggers.
Police suspect the moonshine had been cut with methanol. Cheap, locally-made liquor is common in parts of rural India and bootleggers often add methanol – a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as an anti-freeze to their product to increase its strength.
If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
In one district of Uttar Pradesh 59 people had died after consuming toxic alcohol, police spokesman Shailendra Kumar Sharma confirmed
In a neighbouring district a senior police officer said nine had died, adding that 66 suspected bootleggers had been arrested and samples of the liquor sent to a laboratory for testing.
Police said at least 31 people died in neighbouring Uttarakhand state and that two had been arrested on suspicion of supplying the liquor.
About 3,000 people linked with the illegal trade were arrested across Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Hundreds of poor people die every year in India due to alcohol poisoning, majority being daily wage labourers and farmers too poor to afford branded alcohol, and resorts to cheap mix from illegal bootleggers.
In 2015, more than 100 people died in a Mumbai slum after drinking illegal moonshine.
Of the estimated 5 billion litres of hooch drunk every year in India, around 40 per cent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.