At least 42 people have died since Monday in Botad and Ahmedabad districts in western India’s Gujurat state, with nearly 100 hospitalized for drinking moonshine, police said on Thursday.
“Thirty-one people died after consuming pure alcohol in Botad. Fifty were hospitalized in the neighboring district of Bhavnagar,” inspector general Ashok Yadav told AFP.
According to V. Chandrasekar, a senior police official, eleven deaths were recorded in Ahmedabad.
In the state of Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from, the consumption and sale of alcohol is prohibited by law.
According to Yadav, residents of half a dozen villages drank alcohol supplied by a local vendor last Sunday.
“The investigation reveals that the victims caused their deaths by consuming industrial methanol,” Interior Minister Harsh Sanghavi said in a statement. Sanghavi reported that 97 people were treated at the hospital. Two of them are in critical condition.
Police arrested numerous people for selling illegal alcohol in the state of Gujarat. Hundreds of people in India die each year from alcohol poisoning produced in clandestine distilleries.
According to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India, about 40% of the 5 billion liters of liquor consumed in the country each year comes illegally.
Alcohol is often replaced with methanol to increase its density. Methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and even death if swallowed.
source: Noticias
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