Sagar hooch toll hits 12 as police follow bottles into Lalitpur

The death toll from spurious liquor in Sagar district rose to 12 on Monday after one more patient died. Collector Pratibha Pal said 25 to 30 people remained under observation and two were critical. One patient had been flown to Bhopal on Sunday. Sagar Range Deputy Inspector General Shashindra Chouhan said police had arrested 14 of 30 people named in three FIRs.

The first deaths were recorded at Banda Civil Hospital on Saturday night. More followed on Sunday morning. The dead came from Ghooghra Khurd, Nauraj, Bamoora, Patan, Chauka and Dalpatpur in Banda tehsil, about 30 kilometres from Sagar town. Symptoms reported by the living included blurred vision and dizziness, the usual first signs when methanol is in the mix.

Bottles that looked legal

Madhya Pradesh Excise Commissioner Deepak Saxena said the liquid had been packed to look like Sagar Gold whisky and like a licensed country liquor brand. That detail matters. People who buy from a known shop do not think they are drinking from a pit still. An agent of a licensed seller is suspected of moving the stock across the counter as if it were duty-paid.

Licensed contractors Siddharth Kushwaha and Yashwant Thakur are among those named. FIRs also name shop-level accused including Jujhar Lodhi. Three excise officers and two policemen have been suspended. The area deputy commissioner has been attached to headquarters. Those are the first administrative costs. The criminal case is larger.

The Lalitpur line

Pal said a gang in Lalitpur, across the Uttar Pradesh border in Bundelkhand, is known to supply poisonous liquor into the adjoining Madhya Pradesh tehsils. Chouhan said a link between Lalitpur operators and a local contractor had already appeared in questioning. Liquor is cheaper in that belt of Uttar Pradesh. The border is short and familiar. Bottles that look like Madhya Pradesh brands are the method, according to the early police account.

Revenue staff and village officials were sent door to door on Monday to lift remaining bottles. That is the correct public-health step. It is also an admission that the consignment was wider than the first six villages.

A familiar Indian pattern, with a paper trail this time

Hooch deaths in north and central India usually follow the same week: a Saturday night sale, a Sunday hospital rush, a Monday suspension of the local excise inspector. What is different in Sagar is the labelling. If the spirit was sold as Sagar Gold, the case is not only illicit distillation. It is counterfeiting of a duty-paid brand and a failure at the licensed shop.

Twelve dead is the count at midday Monday. Two patients still critical means the number can move. The investigative number to watch is whether Lalitpur police pick up the people Pal described as a gang, and whether a laboratory sheet names methanol or another adulterant. Until that sheet is public, the cause is still "spurious liquor" and the map is still Banda tehsil plus a road into Uttar Pradesh.