India's toxic alcohol problem

At least 54 people have died in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu after drinking illegal alcohol laced with toxic methanol. 

Nearly 200 people have been treated since last Wednesday and "dozens are still hospitalised" with symptoms including vomiting and diarrhoea, said Al Jazeera. 

Selling and consuming alcohol is banned in several parts of India, which leaves space for a black market of bootlegged liquor, but "few can afford branded spirits". 

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More than a dozen people died last year in a similar incident in a nearby district. Other Indian states, including Assam, Punjab and Bihar, have also reported "hundreds of deaths from bootleg alcohol", said Chennai-based journalist Anupama Chandrasekaran for NPR. 

'The worst in years'

"Hundreds of people die in India every year from cheap alcohol, which is made in illicit backstreet distilleries," said Metro. Vendors often add the toxic chemical to bootlegged liquor to increase its potency, but even a small amount can lead to blindness, liver damage and even death.

Despite "public demands for a crackdown on illegal vendors" the deaths continue. But this "unthinkable tragedy" in the village of Karunapuram, in the Kallakurichi district, is "the worst in years".

The tainted liquor was locally brewed and laced with methanol and then wrongly put on sale last Tuesday, according to Tamil Nadu state chief minister M.K. Stalin. "Within hours" of drinking the alcohol, 37 people were dead. Some "collapsed in the street and died almost immediately".

Authorities have seized 200 litres of the illegal alcohol, and at least seven people have been arrested so far. Several police officers have also been suspended, according to local media reports. 

"It is a complicated socio-economic problem," said Kallakurichi's new top official M.S. Prasanth. "There is a demand due to poverty and some of these people are choosing lower-priced drinks. We have to cut down the supply and do some long-term interventions in the area."

Prasanth has brought in specialist doctors from neighbouring districts and the antidote for methanol poisoning. "Despite these efforts," said Chandrasekaran, "a quarter of the hospitalised patients didn't survive."

'The men work just to drink'

Poor labourers in the district regularly buy black-market liquor in plastic bags for 60 rupees (57p) and drink it before work, a local councillor told The Indian Express. "Men staggering home drunk is not an unusual sight in the village of Karunapuram". 

"The men work just to drink, and the women run the family," said rickshaw driver Shankar, who lives on a street where 23 people died.

On Wednesday, Ponnusamy Rajendran, a 55-year-old labourer, bought "three 50-cent plastic pouches of bootleg alcohol to feed his addiction", said NPR. Rajendran died in a government hospital on Thursday. "He had a limited budget with his wages and after sharing half his earnings with his family, he calculated and found it profitable to buy fake alcohol," said his son-in-law Kaliappan Gnanavel. 

But despite evidence of a "mass poisoning", a district official (who has since been transferred) initially denied that the deaths were due to illegal alcohol. It was "shocking", a local councillor told The Indian Express. "I seemed there was pressure to downplay the incident."

Rajendran's daughter said the family "have battled with the bootleggers to halt the sale of this substance", only to be told: "Why do you allow him to come and purchase from us?" 

"This is a major crisis and it must never occur again," she said.