Death toll in spurious liquor tragedy touches 17 on Day 2

CHENNAI: The number of deaths in Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts after consuming spurious liquor has risen to 17 on Monday, ringing alarm bells in the state machinery. In response to the tragedy, police have been alerted to crack down on sale of spurious liquor resulting in seizures in large numbers in the past two days.

According to an official release, in the last two days, 1842 cases have been registered and 1558 persons were arrested, leading to seizure of 19,029 litres of spurious liquor.

Tamil Nadu Police claimed that so far in 2023, they have seized 2.5 lakh litres of illicit liquor and arrested 55,173 persons, indicating an average seizure of five litres from one accused.

Six persons from Marakkanam in Villupuram district and four persons near Maduranthakam in Chengelpet district had died as on Sunday.

On Monday, six more persons died in Villupuram district and another died in Chengalpattu, police said.

According to the police, M Vijayan (48), D Kesavavelu (70), S Vijayan (45), C Abraham (47), G Sarathkumar (40) of Ekkiyar Kuppam and E Sankar (55) of Marakkanam who were under treatment at Government medical college hospital, Villupuram died on Monday, raising the death toll in Marakkanam incident to 12.

More than 30 persons are still under treatment at hospitals in Villupuram and Puducherry.

Most of the victims in Villupuram district hail from Ekkiyar Kuppam fishing hamlet near Marakkanam, who had consumed the hooch on Saturday evening.

Within few hours, several of them had complained of uneasy feeling and on Saturday, three persons, Suresh (46) and S Shankar (52) and G Dharanivel (50), had died, while on Sunday, D Raja Murthy (60) and Malar Vizhi (70) and Mannangatti (50) died.

In Chengalpattu government hospital, Mariappan (60) of Perunkaranai village died increasing the death toll in Maduranthagam incident to five. On Sunday, Chinnathambi (34), his mother-in-law, Vasantha (40) of Perukkaranai village and Venniyappan (65) and Chandra (55) of Perambakkam had died in their houses after consuming industrial spirit. Four more persons including Chinnathambi's wife, Anjalai (22) are still under treatment.

Since Marakkanam and Maduranthakam are only 50 kms apart, Tamil Nadu Police have been probing if there is any connection between the deaths in the two incidents and are probing if the victims had consumed similar drinks.

In Villupuram, Police arrested three persons V Muthu (35), A Arumugam (40) and A Ravi (42) of Marakkanam for allegedly supplying the hooch to residents of Ekkiyar Palayam. Earlier, V Amaran (27) was arrested on Sunday. In Chengelpet, police arrested Chandru (40) and Velu (38), who sold the Industrial spirit to the victims.