Toxic &Tainted alcohol death toll rises to 63 in Tamil Nadu, en-bloc cremation

The death toll from a batch of illegal alcohol that devastated a town in southern India last week has risen to 63, police said Thursday.

Hundreds of people die every year in India from cheap alcohol made in backstreet distilleries, but this case in Tamil Nadu state is one of the deadliest in recent years.

Others have been blinded after drinking the locally made “arrack” which was laced with methanol in the state’s Kallakurichi district.

Top district police chief Rajat Chaturvedi told AFP that 63 people had died in this case.

More than 100 people were initially taken to hospital after the deadly batch was sold.

Political parties in Tamil Nadu have traded blame for the deaths, with some opposition lawmakers expelled from the state legislature after staging a protest on Wednesday demanding Chief Minister M.K. Stalin resign.

Poor labourers in Kallakurichi district regularly bought the liquor in plastic bags costing 60 rupees ($0.70), which they would drink before work.This batch, however, was devastating.

Some people went blind, while others collapsed in the street and died before they could make it to hospital.

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 moonshine.

To increase its potency, the liquor is often spiked with methanol, which can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

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.

Nearly 200 people have been treated since Wednesday in the district of Kallakurichi, and more than 100 people are still being cared for across multiple hospitals.

Fifty five men and eight women succumbed to the tainted liquor as of Saturday with others being treated for symptoms including vomiting, stomach aches and diarrhoea

People regularly buy illegal alcohol as few can afford branded spirits sometimes leading to large casualty incidents since some vendors add methanol to increase the potency of their drink.

But methanol, a highly toxic chemical substance used for industrial purposes, can lead to blindness, liver damage or death even in small quantities.

According to MS Prasanth, a senior district official, at least seven people have been arrested by the authorities, who earlier said they also seized 200 litres (6,763 fluid ounces) of the illegally produced alcoholic drink.

The government of Tamil Nadu said on Thursday it had taken disciplinary action against 10 officials in charge of managing illegal alcohol and failed to prevent the incident.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin announced the families of the victims and those hospitalised will receive financial compensation from the government. He also ordered a former High Court judge to investigate the incident

State ministers and opposition leaders – who have criticised the government for failing to prevent mass poisonings – travelled to the district to meet victims and their families.

A mass cremation of the deceased has already been carried out with families carrying out last rites next to each other.

More than a dozen people died last year in a similar incident in a nearby district of Tamil Nadu. More than 120 people died in the northern state of Punjab in 2020.

In 2022, more than 30 people died in eastern India’s Bihar state and at least 28 died in Gujarat state in the west after drinking tainted liquor sold without authorisation.