At least four people have died and 19 others are undergoing treatment at different hospitals in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district after allegedly consuming spurious liquor at Kharadi village in Ghogha taluka on Tuesday night, police said.
Police officers said they have so far detained ten suspected bootleggers for questioning.
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Police officers said they have so far detained ten suspected bootleggers for questioning. The incident came to light after people started falling ill following the liquor consumption.
Gujarat is a dry state, where the manufacture, sale and consumption of liquor are prohibited under the state’s prohibition law.
“Preliminary investigation suggests that a bootlegger from Vartej in Bhavnagar district and a man from Madhya Pradesh allegedly joined hands to make quick money by selling spurious liquor. They allegedly filled bottles bearing the Royal Stag label with inferior-quality liquor, mixed it with water and passed it off as genuine liquor,” an officer said.
The inferior-quality liquor bottles were allegedly supplied from Madhya Pradesh, and police are investigating their source and the network through which they reached Bhavnagar, the officer added.
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Police are investigating how many such bottles were sold, where they were distributed and the role of those involved in their manufacture and sale. “Samples have been sent for forensic examination to determine the substances present in the liquor and establish the cause of the deaths and illnesses,” the officer said.
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Police are investigating how many such bottles were sold, where they were distributed and the role of those involved in their manufacture and sale. “Samples have been sent for forensic examination to determine the substances present in the liquor and establish the cause of the deaths and illnesses,” the officer said.
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.
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Home/India News/Four dead, 19 hospitalised after consuming spurious liquor in Gujarat: Police
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