Death toll from India toxic alcohol hits 170

Victims who fell sick after drinking toxic alcohol receive treatment at a hospital in Diamond Harbour, India, on Friday. Police raided illegal distilleries and dismantled dozens of liquor dens across an eastern Indian district, where 170 people died after drinking methanol-tainted bootleg alcohol. Bikas Das / Associated Press

KOLKATA, India - The death toll from a mass poisoning in eastern India caused by toxic home-brewed alcohol rose to 170 on Friday, as police made more arrests in the case. 

"We now have 170 confirmed dead," said Shyamapada Basak, health services director of West Bengal state. He added that authorities expected the toll to rise further as another 145 people were critically ill in local hospitals. 

Police said they had arrested another two people, taking the number detained to 12 over the past two days. 

"We are now looking for Khonra Badsha, the kingpin of the racket involving the sale of illicit, spurious liquor in the district," said West Bengal Police Additional Director General Surojit Kar Purokayastha. 

The victims of Tuesday's alcohol poisoning are from 10 villages in an area near West Bengal's border with Bangladesh. 

Speaking in the state assembly, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the home-made liquor industry had "assumed the proportions of a small-scale industry". 

Suggesting a nexus between politicians and bootleggers, she said "political intervention" made it difficult for police to crack down on the illegal liquor trade. 

Many of the victims were laborers and rickshaw drivers - too poor to afford branded alcohol - who stopped for a drink at illegal bars or bought from bootleggers after work. 

Local hospitals have been overwhelmed by victims arriving either unconscious or complaining of abdominal pains and burning in their chests. 

Police official Purokayastha said that a forensic team was working to ascertain the chemical ingredients in the toxic brew. 

Earlier on Thursday, District Magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam said that methanol had been detected in at least 20 victims. 

Methanol is a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as an anti-freeze or fuel, but also added by producers of "moonshine" or home-brew liquor to increase the alcoholic content of the drink. 

If ingested, it can cause blindness and liver damage, and it kills in larger concentrations.