NEW DELHI: At least 99 people have died and scores have been hospitalized 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, police spokesman Shailendra Kumar Sharma told AFP.
In a neighboring district a senior police officer said nine had died, adding that 66 suspected bootleggers had been arrested and samples of the liquor sent to a laboratory for testing.
Police said at least 31 people died in neighboring Uttarakhand state and that two had been arrested on suspicion of supplying the liquor.
Newspaper reports said around 3,000 people linked with the illegal trade were arrested across Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Hundreds of poor people die every year in India due to alcohol poisoning, mostly from consuming cheap alcohol.
In 2015, more than 100 people died in a Mumbai slum after drinking illegal moonshine.
Of the estimated 5 billion liters of alcohol drunk every year in India, around 40 percent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.
At least 99 dead after consuming toxic alcohol in India
At least 99 dead after consuming toxic alcohol in India
- Officials suspect high levels of methanol chemical were added to the locally-made liquor
- The chemical can cause blindness, liver damage and death if ingested in large quantities
Venezuela swears in 5,600 troops after US military build-up
- American forces have carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 vessels, killing at least 87
CARACAS: The Venezuelan army swore in 5,600 soldiers on Saturday, as the United States cranks up military pressure on the oil-producing country.
President Nicolas Maduro has called for stepped-up military recruitment after the United States deployed a fleet of warships and the world’s largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
American forces have carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 vessels, killing at least 87.
Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a terrorist organization last month.
Maduro asserts the American deployment aims to overthrow him and seize the country’s oil reserves.
“Under no circumstances will we allow an invasion by an imperialist force,” Col. Gabriel Rendon said Saturday during a ceremony at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, in Caracas.
According to official figures, Venezuela has around 200,000 troops and an additional 200,000 police officers.
A former opposition governor died in prison on Saturday where he had been detained on charges of terrorism and incitement, a rights group said.
Alfredo Diaz was at least the sixth opposition member to die in prison since November 2024.
They had been arrested following protests sparked by last July’s disputed election, when Maduro claimed a third term despite accusations of fraud.
The protests resulted in 28 deaths and around 2,400 arrests, with nearly 2,000 people released since then.
Diaz, governor of Nueva Esparta from 2017 to 2021, “had been imprisoned and held in isolation for a year; only one visit from his daughter was allowed,” said Alfredo Romero, director of the NGO Foro Penal, which defends political prisoners.
The group says there are at least 887 political prisoners in Venezuela.
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado condemned the deaths of political prisoners in Venezuela during “post-electoral repression.”
“The circumstances of these deaths — which include denial of medical care, inhumane conditions, isolation, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment — reveal a sustained pattern of state repression,” Machado said in a joint statement with Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the opposition candidate she believes won the election.
