Sale and consumption of liquor were prohibited in Bihar state in 2016 after women’s groups campaigned against poor workers splurging their meager incomes on drinking.
Police officer Santosh Kumar said several of the 20 hospitalized have lost their eyesight.
Three people have been detained for questioning for allegedly selling spiked alcohol in the area, he said. Saran district is nearly 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Patna, the Bihar state capital.
Dr. S. D. Sinha, medical superintendent of the main government-run district hospital, confirmed 17 deaths caused by intoxicants.
Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency. Illicit liquor has also become a hugely profitable industry across India, where bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate.
At least 28 people died and 60 others became ill from drinking tainted liquor in the western Indian state of Gujarat earlier this year. Gujarat is another Indian state where the manufacturing, sale and consumption of liquor are prohibited.
In 2020, at least 120 people died after drinking tainted liquor in India’s northern Punjab state.
