AFP :
Eleven people have died from drinking bootleg alcohol in India’s poorest state Bihar, officials said on Thursday, with their families blaming authorities for their alleged failure to crack down on illegal liquor makers.
Bihar became a dry state in 2016 but a national health survey in 2019-20 found that more than 15 percent of men still reported consuming alcohol. Eight people died Wednesday and a further three on Thursday, days after one of the biggest Hindu festivals, Holi, when alcohol consumption is usually higher.
The victims’ families told authorities that after they drank locally made liquor, they complained of stomach pain and vomiting, and died shortly after.
Five others were also being treated in hospital, officials said. Most of the victims were landless farm labourers or small land-holding peasants in rural Bihar.
