Jul 10, 2009, 8:48 GMT
New Delhi - The death toll from tainted liquor in India's western state of Gujarat rose to 108 Friday even as doctors tried desperately to save scores of critically ill patients, police said.
People, mostly workers, began dying Monday in the commercial city of Ahmedabad after consuming the brew Sunday night.
'A total of 108 people have died, and it is likely the toll could rise further,' Inspector Harkesh Yadav at the police control room in Ahmedabad said in a telephone interview.
Nearly 200 people were admitted to four hospitals, and many were in serious condition.
'The intensive care unit is full of these patients, and there are about 60 outside in various wards,' a doctor at the Civil Hospital told the IANS news agency.
The slow poisonous effect of the brew was claiming lives although many of the patients had been on life support for more than three days, he said.
As the tragedy became politicized with the opposition blaming the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government for the deaths, police stepped up their crackdown on illicit liquor dens across the state.
'I assure people that the culprits will be brought to book, and the strictest action will be taken against them,' Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi told reporters.
The government has already instituted a judicial inquiry.
The state opposition Congress party alleged that one of the main suppliers of the deadly liquor was a BJP politician and demanded Modi's resignation.
People also complained that the police were hand-in-glove with the bootleggers.
'The police told me I should hide the fact that my son died after consuming illicit liquor and instead say he died of some illness,' Saindhaji Jakhore, a local, told the NDTV network. 'I refused to do so.'
'We keep complaining, but the police do not arrest anybody,' another Ahmedabad resident said.
Meanwhile, colleges and schools in the city remained closed after a call for a boycott by the Congress-backed student body the National Students' Union of India.
Police said nearly 1,000 litres of contaminated alcohol were supplied to various places in Ahmedabad from the adjoining Kheda district.
Police teams have raided more than 640 places in the state and closed down 1,200 liquor dens.
'We have detained 596 people connected with illegally brewing the alcohol,' Yadev said. 'Nine main bootleggers have been arrested and sent to jail.'
This is Gujarat's worst liquor tragedy since 132 people died in a matter of days in a similar incident in 1989.
Gujarat is India's only state where the sale and consumption of liquor is banned in deference to Mahatma Gandhi, a Gujarati, who was stridently opposed to liquor consumption.
This has led to a proliferation of illegal liquor dens, whose homemade brew is mostly consumed by those from low-income families.
Deaths due to illicit liquor in India are not reported from Gujarat alone. Illicit liquor is a thriving business in India because it is much cheaper than commercially produced alcohol, but contaminated products cause scores of deaths each year.
According to estimates by local media, more than 230 people have died after consuming tainted liquor across five states, including Delhi, since the beginning of the year.
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