At least 99 people have died and scores have been hospitalised in northern India after drinking toxic alcohol, triggering a crackdown against bootleggers, officials said Monday.
News of the deaths in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand has trickled in over the past three days, with police suspecting 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, a police spokesperson said. Read more