West News Wire: Officials reported on Tuesday that drinking tainted alcohol in western India resulted in at least 28 deaths and 60 illnesses.
Senior government official Mukesh Parmar said that the deaths took place in the Gujarati state’s Ahmedabad and Botad districts, where the production, distribution, and use of alcoholic beverages are all outlawed. What chemical was employed to change the alcohol was not immediately known.
Gujarat State Police Chief Ashish Gupta reported that several suspected bootleggers who were engaged in the sale of the adulterated booze have been detained.
In India, where illicit liquor is inexpensive and frequently spiked with additives like pesticides to improve potency, alcohol-related deaths from illegal brewing are widespread.
Illicit liquor has also become a hugely profitable industry across India where bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate.
In 2020, at least 120 people died after drinking tainted liquor in India’s northern Punjab state.
