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The death toll from tainted liquor in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has reached 53, officials say, and is likely to rise, with many others in critical condition. The victims were sickened by drinking a bootleg alcohol with a high content of methanol.<\/p>\n
Rajat Chaturvedi, the police superintendent in the Kallakurichi District, where the past week\u2019s deaths have occurred, said that 98 people had been hospitalized. \u201cThe dead and hospitalized people are mostly daily wage laborers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The first death, from drinking local alcohol sold in small pouches for about 50 cents, Mr. Chaturvedi said, was reported on Wednesday. The village of Karunapuram was the worst hit, with more than a dozen victims receiving last rites in a mass cremation on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Consumption of tainted alcohol has caused several mass-casualty events across India in recent years. In some states that prohibit alcohol, people turn to smuggled or unregulated liquor. Elsewhere, villagers choose the bootleg product because of its lower price.<\/p>\n
In 2019, at least 150 people died<\/a> in two districts of the northeastern state of Assam from drinking bootleg alcohol. Weeks earlier, 100 people had died<\/a> in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In August 2020, at least 120 people<\/a> died in Punjab from drinking toxic local alcohol, with 92 of the deaths in just one district.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In December 2022, at least 70 people died from drinking tainted alcohol in the eastern state of Bihar. Bihar has banned the sale and consumption of alcohol since 2016, but people consume illegal smuggled alcohol or cross the border into Nepal<\/a> for cheap local alcohol.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Last year, at least 22 people died from consuming similar toxic local alcohol in two other districts of Tamil Nadu. The latest mass casualty has put the state\u2019s government under pressure from opposition leaders as well as from the state\u2019s high court. Opposition lawmakers, who arrived at the assembly dressed in black, called for the resignation of Tamil Nadu\u2019s chief minister, M.K. Stalin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Stalin announced an investigation headed by a retired judge and ordered the police across the state to crack down on the homemade liquor trade.<\/p>\n The man accused of making this week\u2019s batch of poisonous alcohol has been arrested, along with his wife and at least one other person, according to police officials. The Kallakurichi District\u2019s top civilian official has been transferred, while several police officers have been suspended.<\/p>\n Local residents have said that the police were complicit, taking a cut from the bootlegger\u2019s peddlers who brought the alcohol to the villages, according to the Indian news outlet The News Minute<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot say direct involvement of local police, but due to their lack of action, police people were suspended, right from constable to deputy superintendent of police,\u201d said Mr. Chaturvedi, who took charge of the district\u2019s police force after the tragedy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n