KOLKATA: A batch of home-brewed liquor thought to have been laced with the highly toxic chemical methanol has killed 126 people in eastern India, an official told AFP on Thursday.
Hospitals near the impoverished district 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of West Bengal state capital Kolkata have been overwhelmed by victims, either unconscious or complaining of abdominal pains and burning in their chests.
Many of them were labourers and rickshaw drivers too poor to afford branded alcohol that stopped for a drink at illegal bars or bought from bootleggers after work on Tuesday.
"The death toll has reached 126," district magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam told AFP, adding that police had arrested seven people during an investigation into the tragedy in the South 24-Parganas district.
More than 100 other victims were still in hospital, including a 12-year-old boy who apparently mistook the liquor for water, hospital authorities said.
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