Toxic liquor kills over 100 in India

A batch of home-brewed liquor thought to have been laced with the highly toxic chemical methanol has killed over 100 people in eastern India, an official told AFP on Thursday.

Hospitals near the impoverished district of 24-Parganas, 30 kilometres (20 miles) from state capital Kolkata, have been overwhelmed by victims, many of them labourers and rickshaw drivers, too poor to afford branded alcohol.

Bootleg liquor is widely consumed in India because of its low cost, with a local resident in the affected area in West Bengal state told AFP that a half-litre (one pint) cost as little as six rupees (11 US cents).

"The death toll has touched 102," district Magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam said by telephone, adding that many others were critically ill. He said that methanol - a type of industrial-strength alcohol used as anti-freeze or fuel - had been found in the remains of 20 of the victims examined by doctors, leading to suspicion that the chemical was to blame.

It is sometimes added to "moonshine" in small quantities to increase the alcohol content, but it can cause blindness, liver damage and be fatal.

"Methanol was found in the viscera (organs) of at least 20 victims. It may not be the sole reason for the death. We are investigating," Chiranjib Murmu, superintendent of the local Diamond Harbour hospital, told AFP.

Four people have been arrested over the deaths, while the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, has announced an inquiry and said the family of each victim will receive compensation of 200,000 rupees ($3,700).

"I want to take strong action against those manufacturing and selling illegal liquor," Banerjee told a regional television station in Kolkata late Wednesday.

Angry local residents ransacked village breweries and staged protests, police told AFP.

Ganga, a 30-year-old woman whose husband was taken ill, called alcohol the "curse" of nearby villages.

"If the liquor outlets which have sprouted along the railway tracks in the villages are demolished in the morning, they are back by the evening," she told AFP by telephone. AFP