At least 54 people have died in India's southern Tamil Nadu state after drinking illegal alcohol laced with the toxic chemical methanol. Nearly 200 more people have been treated since last Wednesday, and "dozens are still hospitalized" with symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea, said Al Jazeera.
Selling and consuming alcohol is banned in several parts of India. That leaves space for a black market of bootlegged liquor, but "few can afford branded spirits," Al Jazeera said. Backstreet distilleries fill in the gaps, and vendors often add methanol to this illicit alcohol to increase its potency, though even a small amount can lead to blindness, liver damage and even death.
More than a dozen people died last year in a similar laced-alcohol incident in a nearby district. Other Indian states, including Assam, Punjab and Bihar, have reported "hundreds of deaths from bootleg alcohol," Anupama Chandrasekaran, a journalist based in Chennai, told NPR.
Ponnusamy Rajendran, a 55-year-old laborer in Tamil Nadu, joined their ranks after buying "three 50-cent plastic pouches of bootleg alcohol to feed his addiction" last Wednesday, NPR said. He died in a government hospital on Thursday.
Despite evidence of a "mass poisoning," a district official (who has since been transferred) initially denied that the deaths were due to illegal alcohol. Rajendran's daughter said the family had "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. | 
