34 people were killed and 100 others rushed to the hospital after drinking from a batch of toxic illegal alcohol in India, Tamil Nadu state officials told reporters Thursday.
The deadly mix of locally brewed arrack drink was laced with poisonous methanol, chief minister M.K. Stalin told the Press Trust of India news agency.
He said arrests had been made over the deaths and warned that such crimes “ruin society and will be suppressed with an iron fist,” according to a statement from his office.
Hundreds of people die every year in India from cheap alcohol made in backstreet distilleries.
In order to increase its potency the liquor is often spiked with methanol, which can cause blindness, liver damage, and death.
In the Tamil Nadu case, more than 100 people were hospitalised according to M.S. Prasanth, a top government official in the state’s Kallakurichi district, who was quoted by the Indian media.
State Governor R.N. Ravi said he is “deeply shocked” at the deaths, adding that “many more victims are in serious condition battling for (their) lives”, he wrote on the social media platform, X.
Tamil Nadu is not a dry state, but liquor traded on the black market comes at a lower price than alcohol sold legally.
Selling and consuming liquor is prohibited in several other parts of India, further driving the thriving black market for potent and sometimes lethal backstreet moonshine.
Last year, poisonous alcohol killed at least 27 people in one sitting in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, while in 2022, at least 42 people died in Gujarat.
AFP