At least 15 tea plantation workers, including 4 women, died in Assam after drinking toxic illicit liquor. Besides, 18 have been admitted to a hospital and 4 of them are critically-ill, according to a doctor.
Police said that the number of deaths is likely to increase as more people from the plantation in Assam's Golaghat, 310 km from Guwahati, are being brought to the hospital after they consumed the liquor on Thursday night.
A doctor at the government hospital in Golaghat, Dilip Rajbnonshi said, “The deaths were due to spurious country liquor.
Around 100 people drank the liquor and they are still falling ill and being brought into hospital, Mrinal Saikia, a local lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told Reuters.
The deaths come less than two weeks after more than 100 people died in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand from drinking illegally produced alcohol, called locally as hooch or country liquor.