Daily Times

Ninety-three workers have died and at least 200 others have been hospitalised in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, officials said Saturday, in the latest case of alcohol poisoning in the country.

The deaths in Assam state came less than two weeks after tainted liquor killed about 100 people in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

“The number of dead (in the district) has now increased to 58, and another 75 people are undergoing treatment” in local hospitals, Dhiren Hazarika, deputy commissioner of Golaghat district in Assam, told AFP.

Another official from the neighbouring district of Jorhat said that 35 people had died there after consuming a batch of “spurious liquor”.

Hazarika said people started falling sick after consuming a batch of illegally produced liquor late Thursday.

The victims, who include many women, worked at local tea estates in the region. The death toll could rise further as both officials said some of the afflicted were in a critical condition.

“The people came to the hospital with severe vomiting, extreme chest pain and breathlessness,” doctor Ratul Bordoloi, joint director of Golaghat’s health department, told AFP.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered an inquiry. State police said they had arrested one man for selling the liquor, and authorities said two excise department officials were suspended for failing to take adequate precautions over the sale of the alcohol. Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told AFP that state authorities had collated “at least 80” deaths in the districts. “But apart from this some more people died outside the hospital,” he added.

Published in Daily Times, February 24^th 2019.