Bhavnagar, 21 August

Sixty-one persons have been affected so far due to consumption of spurious liquor in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district, with eight deaths confirmed and 10 patients being critical, officials said Friday.

As many as 25 persons, who consumed the liquor containing methanol, a highly toxic substance, are still undergoing treatment, the district administration said.

Police have arrested 13 of the 21 accused named in the FIR registered at Vartej police station in connection with the hooch tragedy. Gujarat is a ‘dry’ state where the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol is banned.

“A total of 61 persons have been affected, with 25 still undergoing treatment. Eighteen other persons who consumed the liquor approached the hospital and left after taking advice from the doctors,” the district administration office said.

Of those being treated, 15 are stable, while ten are in ICUs (intensive care units), including one on ventilator support. Ten others have been discharged so far, it added.

According to police, the victims consumed spurious liquor packed in bottles bearing the name of a popular Indian-made foreign liquor brand.

The accused persons have been booked for charges like culpable homicide not amounting to murder, adulteration and poisoning under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Prohibition Act. A local court on Thursday remanded them in police custody for 10 days.

The probe has been handed over to the State Monitoring Cell (SMC), a special Gujarat police unit that tracks state-wide illicit liquor and gambling operations.

The illicit hooch was allegedly prepared at the house of one Gautam Solanki, a resident of Vartej, with the help of Raees, who was detained from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. The toxic liquor was packed and sealed in bottles and supplied to bootleggers for distribution.

The matter came to light after three friends consumed the liquor at Vartej on the night of August 16, but all took ill, and one of them died.

The examination of the blood sample of the first victim, Upendrasinh Gohil, showed the presence of methanol.

More deaths followed, and many more were hospitalised with severe complications. The liquor contained 38.59 per cent methanol and 0.94 per cent ethanol, a Forensic Science Laboratory report showed, said officials.

Solanki told the police that he came in contact with Raees through a common friend. Raees and Zuber, his assistant from Ujjain, procured raw materials from Ahmedabad and prepared the toxic liquor at Solanki’s residence, according to the FIR registered at Vartej police station on August 19.

They involved Narendra Yadav, also from Madhya Pradesh, in the illegal business. Yadav, police later said, died after consuming the liquor that he himself prepared.

Teams have also been sent to Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, from where the raw material was likely supplied to Gujarat, Superintendent of Police of SMC, Mayursinh Chavda, said in a press conference on Thursday

He said that prima facie, most of these people did this for financial gain.

A majority of the bottles containing the chemical-laced alcohol have been seized by the SMC, he said.

“Investigation is also underway into where the bottle-sealing equipment came from and who supplied it,” he said, adding that the accused were also involved in the destruction of evidence and were helped by their relatives.