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INDIA-CRIME-HEALTH-ALCOHOL
Toxic alcohol kills 69 in India, hundreds hospitalised: officials
GUWAHATI, India, Feb 23, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Sixty-nine workers have died and
at least 200 others have been hospitalised in northeastern India after
drinking toxic liquor, officials said Saturday, in the latest case of alcohol
poisoning in the country.
“We have recorded the death of 50 persons in Golaghat since Thursday
night,” Dhiren Hazarika, deputy commissioner of Golaghat district in Assam
state, told AFP.
Another official from the neighbouring district of Jorhat said that 19
people had died there after consuming a batch of “spurious liquor”.
The deaths came less than two weeks after tainted liquor killed about 100
people in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The victims, who include many women, worked at local tea estates in the
region.
“The people came to the hospital with severe vomiting, extreme chest pain
and breathlessness,” doctor Ratul Bordoloi, joint director of Golaghat’s
health department, told AFP.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered an inquiry.
State police said they arrested one man for selling the liquor, and
authorities said two excise department officials were suspended for failing
to take adequate precautions over the sale of the alcohol.
Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told AFP that the patients were
being treated at different hospitals in the affected districts.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1339 hrs