Tainted liquor kills dozens in India’s Assam state

At least 50 people have died in northeastern India after drinking toxic bootleg liquor, according to local authorities.

The victims were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts of Assam state, which lie hundreds of kilometres from the state’s financial capital, Guwahati, local police officer Julie Sonowal told the Associated Press news agency on Friday.

Another 50 people have been sickened by the liqour, Sonowal said, which was laced with methyl alcohol, a chemical that attacks the central nervous system.

The owner of a brew-making unit and four others have been arrested, AP reported.

Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol, known locally as hooch or country liquor, are common in India, with licensed brands unaffordable for many of the country’s lowest-paid workers.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, about 1,000 people die in India every year because of such substances.

Friday’s deaths came less than two weeks after more than 100 people died after drinking tainted alcohol in northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

In some of the worst cases of such poisoning, 200 people died in 1992 in Odisha state, 180 in West Bengal in 2011, and 100 in the city of Mumbai in 2015.