The police in India said that dozens of people died and over 60 others were hospitalized after consuming alcohol that contained 98% methanol, the case happened in a province that has banned alcohol since 1960. The owner of the chemical company was arrested along with eight associates
At least 28 people died and another 60 fell ill in western India after drinking alcohol that contained methanol in order to increase its potency. The deaths occurred in the Ahmedabad and Butad districts of Gujarat state, where the production, sale and consumption of alcohol is prohibited. “There was 98 percent methanol in the alcohol they consumed, that means they consumed only methanol, which increased the death toll,” Bhavnagar Inspector General of Police Ashok Yadav told The Times of India.
The Ahmedabad city crime branch has arrested the owner of the chemical company, Jaish Khawadia of Narul and eight of his associates on suspicion of poisoning. The death toll is expected to rise further after a number of patients arrived in a critical condition at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad for medical treatment.
The state of Gujarat has banned alcohol consumption since 1960, but hundreds of residents have died in recent decades as the illegal alcohol trade has sprung up. Liquor has also become a very profitable industry across India, where market traders pay no taxes and sell huge quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate.
Local police routinely turn a blind eye to the liquor trade, as producers pay bribes to carry out their illegal sales in villages, local Indian media reported.
In 2019, 140 people died after drinking tainted liquor in two separate incidents in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. The victims were mainly tea plantation workers. That year another 80 people died from tainted alcohol in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. In 2020, another 120 people died after drinking alcohol from substances in the northern Indian state of Punjab.