At least 21 people, including a woman, died and over a dozen hospitalised after consuming spurious liquor in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr and Ghaziabad districts, police said Wednesday.
Eleven hooch deaths occurred in Mirpur Khawjpur village in Bulandshahr and ten at Simbhavali in Ghaziabad in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, they said adding the victims had consumed the illicit brew in the past two days.
Two of them were blinded after drinking the toxic liquor, hospital sources said.
A DIG-level probe had been ordered into the deaths in Bulandshahar while the SHO, in whose jurisdiction the tragedy happened in Ghaziabad, had been suspended.
All the 11, including a woman, killed in Bulandshahr were labourers.
Seven of them were found dead this morning and the remaining succumbed in hospital, police said.
The shop from where the victims bought the hooch had been sealed and its owner taken into custody.
In Lucknow, Home Department sources said an inquiry had been ordered into the Hooch tragedy in Bulandshahr.
A DIG-level officer would conduct the probe, they said.
In Ghaziabad, ten people died and some 15 hospitalised after drinking the illicit brew in four villages in Simbhawaliarea in Garh Mukteshwar sub- district in the state, police said.
Two of the hospitalised had lost their vision, the sources said.
District Magistrate R Ramesh Kumar said SHO Om Prakash had been suspended in connection with the deaths.
This was the second hooch tragedy in the district in the past five days.
Six people died after consuming tainted liquor in a village in Garh Mukteshwar last Saturday.