Five dead, 22 others hospitalised as hooch tragedy hits UP's Aligarh again

ALIGARH: Five people died and at least 22 were taken ill after allegedly consuming spurious liquor in a village in Aligarh district, police said on Thursday.

This is the second liquor tragedy in this district in recent days.

In the earlier case, at least 35 people died after consuming illicit liquor while a post-mortem was also conducted on 52 others and officials fear that some of them may have died due to the same cause.

On Wednesday night, some brick kiln labourers consumed country made liquor dumped in a canal near Rohera village in Jawan area, police said.

"It appears that some persons involved in the spurious liquor trade dumped their entire stock in the canal fearing a raid," Senior Superintendent of Police, Kalanidhi Naithani told reporters.

According to locals, after discovering the liquor, the labourers started celebrating but shortly afterwards they all started feeling unwell.

An alarm was raised and a police party from nearby Jawan police station rushed to the spot and took the victims to a hospital.

Chief Superintendent of Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College hospital, Dr Harris Manzur said five people have died so far, three of whom were brought dead.

"Doctors are battling to save the lives of the remaining 22 victims," he said, adding that throughout the night critically ill patients arrived at the hospital.

Till Thursday morning, 27 people had arrived and if some of these patients would have been hospitalised "earlier", we could have saved some more lives, Manzur said.

He said that the first six hours are crucial in such cases.

Meanwhile, the police said that the matter is being investigated and a case has been filed against unnamed persons.