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Indian police raided rural hamlets and made arrests to break up a bootlegging cartel on Sunday, after 86 people died from consuming illegally produced alcohol this week in the northwestern state of Punjab, officials said.
"We have conducted raids at more than 30 places today, and we have detained six more persons," Dhruman H. Nimbale, a senior police officer in Punjab's Tarn Taran district, told Reuters.
Nimbale said the first death occurred on Wednesday but police were only alerted on Friday, and then launched an investigation to determine whether the fatalities were linked.
Punjab police have so far arrested at least 25 people and conducted more than 100 raids across three districts, seizing hundreds of liters of liquor from villages and roadside eateries, the state's police chief Dinkar Gupta said on Saturday.
Indian police gather containers of bootleg alcohol recovered in a raid after multiple deaths from alcohol poisoning in Azamgarh Village, Uttar Pradesh, India, July 11, 2017. /AFP
A government official said some of the seized liquid was denatured spirit, which is typically used in the paint and hardware industry.
Local reports suggest the illegal liquor may have been produced in bulk, sold to roadside eateries and then distributed to local communities.
Deaths from illegally produced alcohol are a regular occurrence in India because it's much cheaper than branded spirits and common in parts of rural India. Hundreds of people die in India each year by consuming bootleg alcohol.
Recent coronavirus-related lockdowns have also made it difficult for consumers to enjoy a regular tipple.
On Friday, 10 men died in a southern Indian state after consuming sanitizer derived from alcohol, as local liquor shops were closed, police said.
(CGTN)
