Like Nigeria, local gin kills 99 in India

Illegally-made alcohol has killed not less than 99 people, while rendering scores to various degree of sickness in a slum in Mumbai, Indian, authorities have confirmed.

According to Dhananjay Kulkarni, spokesman of the Mumbai police, 46 people have been hospitalised, with a bulk of them in critical condition.

“More than 150 have consumed this alcohol. The death toll may rise,” he said, adding that eight police officials had been suspended for suspected negligence.

According to CNN, the incident took place near Laxmi Nagar, a large slum in India’s financial capital, Mumbai.

Four other men and two women had been booked over the deaths, on charges including culpable homicide, poisoning and abetting a crime.

In Nigeria, the federal government has placed a ban on the consumption of local gin, popularly known as ‘Ogogoro’, following the death of at least 70 people in Rivers state.

“In the beginning, it started somewhere in Woji and by the time we had the last count, we had about 80 persons tracked down, who took the drink, out of which 70 had died,” Nnanna Onyekwere, director public health services of the Rivers state ministry of health said on Sunday.

“The rest survived while two had visual impairment as a result of the drink.”

Though relatively new in Nigeria, deaths from cheap, illegally-brewed liquor often containing toxic methanol are not new in India.

More than 160 people died from drinking a bad batch of local gin, also called ‘moonshine’, in West Bengal in 2011, with at least another 25 people dead and 125 hospitalised from the consumption in Uttar Pradesh.

In both countries, most locals who take these drinks take it to numb their senses and “get on with their hectic” days, especially in rainy seasons.