Toxic alcohol kills 102 in India

KOLKATA: A tainted batch of bootleg liquor killed 102 people and sent dozens more to the hospital in villages outside the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, officials said.

Day laborers and other poor workers began falling ill late Tuesday after drinking the brew that was laced with the toxic methanol around the village of Sangrampur, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Kolkata, according to district magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam.

”It’s a very sad thing that this has happened. Why don’t the police stop this? I cannot understand? What connection do they have?” said Anwar Hassan Mullah, who brought six people from his village to the hospital. All of them died, Mullah told NDTV news channel.

Police arrested four people in connection with making and distributing the methanol-spiked booze, said police official Surajit Kar Purkayastha. Highly toxic methanol can be used as a fuel, solvent and anti-freeze.

By Thursday morning the death toll had skyrocketed to 102, and dozens more remained hospitalized, Nigam said.Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of the state of West Bengal, promised a crackdown.

”I want to take strong action against those manufacturing and selling illegal liquor,” she said, according to Press Trust of India. ”But this is a social problem also, and this has to be dealt with socially also along with action.”

The deaths came just days after more than 90 people were killed in a hospital fire in nearby Kolkata that led to the arrest of the facility’s directors for culpable homicide.

The latest tragedy began Tuesday night when groups of poor laborers finished work and bought some cheap homemade booze for about 10 rupees (20 cents) a half liter, less than one-third the price of legal alcohol.

The men were drinking along the roadside near the railway station, when they began vomiting, suffering piercing headaches and frothing at the mouth, Nigam said.

Arman Seikh, 23-years-old, rushed his brother-in-law to the hospital.

”He complained of burning chest and severe stomach pain last night,” he told The Associated Press.

Furious villagers ransacked the illegal alcohol shops. Bootleg liquor kills dozens of people every year in India. In 2009, at least 112 people died from a toxic brew in western India.

Despite religious and cultural taboos against drinking among Indians, 5 per cent —roughly 60 million people, the population of France —are alcoholics.

Two-thirds of the alcohol consumed in the country is illegal hooch made in remote villages or undocumented liquor smuggled in, according to The Lancet.

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Roadside bomb kills Afghan district chief: official

KANDAHAR: A roadside bomb killed an anti-Taliban district governor and two of his bodyguards on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand province, an official said.

The governor of Khan Neshin district, Massoud Khan, was a fierce opponent of drug smugglers and the Taliban, who issued him with death threats, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.

The governor, aged in his early 30s, was driving to work when his vehicle hit the device, Ahmadi said.

“The district governor Massoud Khan along with two bodyguards were martyred in the blast,” Ahmadi said, adding that two other bodyguards were also wounded.

The Taliban was not immediately reachable for comment but roadside bombs are the weapon of choice for the militants in their decade-long insurgency against international forces and the Kabul government.

Parts of Helmand remain highly unstable although provincial capital Lashkar Gah is under the control of Afghan forces and three other districts are due to switch from Nato to Afghan security control.

There are around 140,000 international troops, mainly from the United States, in Afghanistan helping government forces combat the insurgency.

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US winning conflict in Afghanistan: Panetta

FOB SHARANA: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday told troops during a visit to Afghanistan that the US-led coalition was winning the 10-year conflict in the war-torn country.

“We’re moving in the right direction and we’re winning this very tough conflict,” he told troops based in Paktika province, which shares a long, porous border with Pakistan’s tribal belt troubled by Taliban militancy.

“Are there challenges out there? You’re damn right, there are challenges.

Are we gonna be able to take on those challenges? You’re damn right we will.

“Ultimately here in Afghanistan, we will able to establish a country that is able to govern and secure itself, we will make sure that the Taliban will never be able to find safe haven here, that al-Qaeda will never again be able to find safe havens here.”

Panetta made the comments as he met US troops from 172 Infantry Brigade stationed at Forward Operating Base Sharana, just over 50 kilometres (35 miles) from the Pakistan border.

His two-day visit to the country comes with the United States on track to withdraw 10,000 troops this year and Nato soldiers handing security to Afghan forces before the planned exit of all Nato combat troops in 2014.

Panetta said 2014 would not mean the end of international support in Afghanistan.

“We will not simply pick up and get out. We spilled too much blood here,” he said.

His visit comes with America’s Pakistan alliance in crisis over Nato strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border on November 26.

Pakistan responded by shutting the US supply line into landlocked Afghanistan, saying the blockade could last weeks longer, and forcing Americans to leave an air base widely reported to have been a hub for CIA drones.

Panetta said it was important to make sure Pakistan could secure their side of the border.

“It’s difficult, it’s complex, but at the same time it’s important to maintain a relationship with Pakistan,” he said.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL