Doctors are battling to save the lives of the remaining 24 victims, police said. (Representational)
Three more people who had consumed spurious liquor found dumped in a canal near Rohera village in Jawan area in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh have died, taking the count in the second hooch tragedy in the district to nine, officials said on Friday.
Another man died Friday in the district's Kodiyagunj village and officials link it with the same stock of liquor found in the canal near Rohera village on June 2 by some brick kiln workers.
The 10 deaths are apart from people killed in the first case, in which 35 people are confirmed to have died of liquor poisoning. The number could be higher as reports of viscera exams on 52 more suspected victims are still awaited.
All the victims, including women, in the June 2 hooch tragedy belonged to a group of around 120 migrant workers from Bihar. They were living in temporary shanties at the local brick kiln where they worked.
Chief Medical Officer, Aligarh, Bhanu Pratap Kalyani confirmed that "nine post-mortems have been conducted since Thursday on victims of Rohera village hooch tragedy".
The victims are being mainly treated at the Jawahar Lal Nehru (JLN) Medical College besides some at private hospitals, officials said.
Police said a labourer working at another brick kiln in Kodiyagunj village under Akraabaad police station area died after allegedly consuming spurious liquor.
They said the liquor consumed by the labourer was floating down in a crate downstream the same canal near Rohera village.
Chief Superintendent, JLN Medical College, Harris Manzur told PTI that 32 people have so far been admitted in the hospital from Wednesday night till Thursday evening.
"Of these, seven people died (of the total nine deaths) till this morning and 25 are being treated. Some of them are still in serious condition. They had reportedly consumed the liquor discovered on Wednesday evening by one of the labourers who had been fishing in the canal (near Rohera village)," he said on Friday.
Talking to reporters, Kalyani noted, "Post-mortems of 98 people have been conducted till this morning after the first hooch tragedy broke out on May 28."
He said the district authorities are awaiting the viscera reports before confirming the cause of deaths of all these 98 victims.
The district administration has so far confirmed 35 deaths in the May 28 hooch tragedy.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen children whose parents had been hospitalised after the tragedy had been without food or water.
However, local MLA Dalbeer Singh rushed in food supplies to the helpless children when the matter came to the fore.
Singh also asked the district authorities to immediately provide relief to the bereaved families, especially the orphaned children.
In the incident on June 2, the brick kiln workers had found liquor cartons dumped in the canal. They started celebrating but were taken ill shortly after consuming the countrymade brew.
An alarm was raised and a police party from the nearby Jawan police station had rushed to the spot and took the victims to the hospital.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)