The Malad hooch tragedy toll on Sunday touched 96, thus crossing the earlier highest-ever death roll of 87 in a similar killer brew incident that took place at Vikhroli in north-east Mumbai in December 2004, even as the Maharashtra Government announced a compensation of `1 lakh each to the next of kin of those killed in the mishap.
With the steady rise in the number of causalities in Wednesday’s hooch tragedy, the number of deaths in the Malad incident threatened to reach a three figure mark in the next couple of days. “The hooch tragedy toll has now risen to 96. As many as 35 persons are undergoing treatment at city various hospitals,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay Kulkarni told The Pioneer in the evening.
The city crime branch police, who are investigating the hooch tragedy, carried out raids on the godowns of Francis D’Mello, one of the five persons arrested in connection with the incident, at Malwani on Sunday morning and seized eight drums of illicit liquor and a large number of small cans containing the killer brew.
Talking to media persons after the raids on D’Mello, Assistant Commissioner of Police ( Crime Branch-CID) Sunil Deshmukh said: “Based on the information provided by D’Mellow during custodial interrogation, we raided the godowns belonging to him and seized eight huge drums of illicit liquor and several cans containing the remaining stocks of the killer brew that they sold to people in the locality on Wednesday. We have taken the samples of the killer brew and sent them for chemical analysis”.
The investigators suspect the killer brew contains excess volume of methanol – better known as Methyl alcohol.
Deshmukh indicated that the toll in the hooch tragedy, which had mounted to a staggering 96, might go up further, considering that several among those undergoing treatment at various hospitals continued to be in a “critical” condition.
Meanwhile, BJP’s Guardian Minister for Mumbai suburbs Vinod Tawde visited Malwani locality and met the family members of those killed in the hooch tragedy. After the meeting, he announced a compensation of `1 lakh each from the Chief Minister’s relief fund, to the next of kin of those killed in the Malad killer brew incident.
Nearly 150 persons, aged between 18 and 60 years, had consumed liquor on Wednesday night at an illegal joint near the area around the Jurassic Park resort at Malvani. Many of the victims were rushed to the nearby hospitals in the early hours of Thursday, after they showed symptoms like nausea, irritation and headache.
The first death was reported at 9 am on Thursday and by the night, as many as 13 persons died. The toll went up further during the last three days, with more deaths reports from hospitals where the victims had been admitted.
The Malad hooch tragedy toll crossed the earlier highest-ever death roll of 87 in a similar killer brew incident that took place at Vikhroli in north-east Mumbai on December 25, 2004.
As many as 287 people had been hospitalised on that day more than a decade ago after consuming country liquor mixed with methanol. Of the hospitalised, 87 people – including two women — died in that hooch incident.