Death toll rose to 130 as 35 more workers have died in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, police said on Sunday.
The deaths in Assam state came less than two weeks after tainted liquor killed about 100 people in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
In addition to the latest toll, at least 200 more people are still hospitalised across Assam.
"The death toll has reached 133 in Golaghat and Jorhat districts from the hooch tragedy," Mukesh Agarwala, additional director general of state police, told AFP on Sunday.
"A total of 10 people have been arrested. We have sent the samples of the liquor... to a forensic laboratory. The report is awaited," he added.
Police said people started falling sick after consuming a batch of illegally produced liquor late Thursday. The victims, who include many women, worked at local tea estates in the region.
Doctors said those rushed to hospital in a critical condition were suffering from severe vomiting, extreme chest pain and breathlessness.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered an inquiry into the deaths.
Apart from the arrests, two excise department officials were suspended for failing to take adequate precautions over the sale of the alcohol.
Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma vowed those responsible for the tainted booze would be brought to justice.
Cheap, locally made liquor is common in parts of rural India and bootleggers often add methanol ─ a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as an antifreeze ─ to their product to increase its strength.
If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
Hundreds of mainly poor people die each year in India from tainted liquor, which normally costs just a few US cents a bottle.
Of the estimated five billion litres of alcohol drunk every year in India, around 40 per cent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.
Many Indian states have implemented or pushed for prohibition, which, according to critics, further increases the unsupervised manufacture and sale of alcohol.
The victims of one of the most deadly bootleg liquor-related incidents ever in India were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts in Assam state, government official Julie Sonowal told The Associated Press.
The workers consumed the tainted liquor laced with methyl alcohol — a chemical that attacks the central nervous system — on Thursday and started falling unconscious. They were rushed to nearby hospitals and the death toll rose to 84 by Saturday, according to Assam Home Commissioner Ashutosh Agnihotri.
Himanta Biswa Sharma, Assam's health minister, said around 200 people who fell sick after drinking the toxic liquor are in hospitals, some in critical condition.
Manab Gohain, a doctor at the Jorhat Medical College Hospital, said 34 patients have died in the past 24 hours.
The owner of a local brewing unit and eight others have been arrested, police official Mukesh Agarwal told the AP. Awarwal said police are pursuing other people believed to be connected to the racket as part of an ongoing investigation.
“We shall not spare anyone involved in manufacture and distribution of the tainted liquor,” Sharma, the health minister, said.
Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India because the poor cannot afford licensed brands from government-run shops. Illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked to increase potency.
In India's Uttar Pradesh state earlier this month, about 80 people died from tainted bootleg liquor.
The workers consumed the tainted liquor laced with methyl alcohol — a chemical that attacks the central nervous system — on Thursday and started falling unconscious. They were rushed to nearby hospitals and the death toll rose to 84 by Saturday, according to Assam Home Commissioner Ashutosh Agnihotri.
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