Patna, December 15, 2022 (PPI-OT):At least 31 people have died and several others hospitalised in India’s Bihar state after drinking toxic alcohol, authorities and local media said. The deaths happened mainly in two villages in the impoverished eastern state, where the sale and consumption of liquor were banned in 2016 after women’s groups campaigned against poor workers splurging their meagre incomes on drinking.

Such bans are in force in several Indian states, driving a thriving black market for cheap alcohol made in unregulated backstreet distilleries that kills hundreds of people every year. In the latest incident, men in Saran district, north of state capital Patna, began vomiting on Tuesday before their condition deteriorated.

Several people died on the way to hospital and others died while being treated on Wednesday and Thursday, with local media reports putting the toll at 31. Officials fear the death toll could further rise. Senior police officer Santosh Kumar said several of the hospitalised people have lost their eyesight. “We have arrested 126 people in the last 48 hours after the incident was reported and two cases have been registered,” Kumar told the media.

Of the estimated five billion litres of alcohol drunk every year in the country, about 40 percent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India. Illicit liquor is often spiked with methanol to increase its potency. If ingested, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death. In 2020, about 120 people died in the northern state of Punjab in a similar incident.

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