Indian people arrange the bodies of victims who died after allegedly drinking toxic bootleg liquor in Assam's Golaghat district on February 22, 2019. - Twenty-five members of a tribe of Indian tea pickers, including 15 women, died painful deaths within hours of drinking poisoned alcohol, police said on February 22. Another official from the neighbouring district of Jorhat said that 35 people had died there after consuming a batch of "spurious liquor." Of the estimated five billion litres of alcohol drunk every year in India, around 40% 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.

Source: Dhaka Tribune February 23, 2019 10:52 UTC