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Agence France-Presse

Sixty-nine workers have died and at least 200 others have been hospitalised in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, officials said on Saturday.
The deaths in Assam state came less than two weeks after tainted liquor killed about 100 people in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
“We have recorded the death of 50 persons in Golaghat since Thursday night,” Dhiren Hazarika, deputy commissioner of Golaghat district in Assam, said.
Another official from the neighbouring district of Jorhat said that 19 people had died there after consuming a batch of “spurious liquor”.

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, said.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered an inquiry.
State police said they have 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 Agence France-Presse that the patients were being treated at different hospitals in the affected districts.
The people came to the hospital with severe vomiting, extreme chest pain
Doctor Ratul Bordoloi
Hundreds of mainly poor people die each year in the South Asian country from tainted liquor, which normally costs just a few US cents a bottle.
Of the estimated five billion litres of alcohol drunk every year in India, around 40 per cent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.
Many Indian states have implemented or pushed for prohibition, which, according to critics, further increases the unsupervised manufacture and sale of alcohol.
Deadly bootleg alcohol kills at least 28 in northern India
Police officer Julie Sonowal says the victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts in Assam state.
The workers consumed the tainted liquor laced with methyl alcohol, a chemical that attacks the central nervous system, on Thursday and started falling unconscious. The owner of a local brew making unit and four others have been arrested.
Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India because the poor cannot afford licensed brands.
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India

69 workers die after drinking bootleg liquor in India’s Assam

A patient who drank toxic liquor is treated at a hospital in India’s Assam state. Photo: AFP

(190223) -- GOLAGHAT, Feb. 23, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Villagers stand in front of the bodies of victims who died of drinking illicit liquor in Golaghat district, Assam, India, Feb. 22, 2019. The death toll due to consumption of illicit liquor in India's northeastern state of Assam Friday has risen to 41, local government officials said. Over 60 others are in hospitals undergoing treatment. (Xinhua/Stringer)

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The victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts
Police said they have arrested one man for selling the liquor


The victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts.


69 workers die after drinking bootleg liquor in India’s Assam

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}The victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts Police said they have arrested one man for selling the liquor

The victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts

Police said they have arrested one man for selling the liquor