At least 11 dead after consuming spurious liquor in Madhya Pradesh

At least 11 people died after consuming spurious liquor in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district on Sunday (September 6, 2026).

Following directions from Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, the government launched a police investigation, suspended three excise officials and two police officers, and relieved one excise official from duty and transferred her. Speaking in New Delhi, Mr. Yadav termed the deaths “extremely distressing and unfortunate” and said “no guilty party will be spared”.

Deepak Saxena, the State Excise Commissioner, told The Hindu that action was taken against four officials for serious negligence and for failing to act on recent complaints about the sale of spurious liquor in some villages of the district.

Sagar Superintendent of Police, Anurag Sujania, said 12 suspects have been detained and are being questioned.

Officials said that early on Sunday, people fell ill in four villages – Nauraj, Gogra Khurd, Bamura, and Patan under the Banda tehsil limits.

Sagar Collector Pratibha Pal said post-mortem examinations were still ongoing and the administration is on the lookout for people who have fallen ill. “A doctors’ team is screening for such people, and officials like the SDM are on the spot. We are trying to identify anyone with such symptoms and send them to the Bundelkhand Medical College for observation,” she said.

Ms. Pal said a few postmortem examinations indicated that consumption of methyl alcohol may have caused the deaths. “Interactions with locals indicated that the deaths occurred after they (victims) consumed illegal, spurious liquor. Screening has already begun in the affected villages,” Ms. Pal added.

She said the initial investigation pointed to the involvement of a gang from Uttar Pradesh. “There is a gang from Lalitpur, U.P., which is involved in supplying methyl alcohol, and since we share a border with Lalitpur, we have received information that their chain in our area has also come to (our) notice. Further investigation is underway,” she added.

Additional SP of Sagar district, Narendra Solanki, told The Hindu that, besides the dead, those who fell ill were hospitalised. “But all are out of danger now,” he said.

Mr. Sujania, too, said the liquor could have come from Lalitpur. “Such activities have been found there even in the past. So, we are working in the same direction and will reach its main source soon. We have detained 10-12 people so far and are trying to establish a link through a systematic interrogation. We are also trying to curtail its movement, if it is anywhere else, to prevent anymore loss of life,” he said.

Ajay Lodhi, a resident of Nauraj who fell ill after drinking the spurious liquor, told reporters that fake alcohol is sold in the villages and that he bought it from a small grocery shop in his village.

Mr. Saxena suspended Kirti Dubey (Assistant Commissioner Excise, Sagar), Dilip Khandate (Assistant District Excise Officer), and Proshni Ureti (Excise Sub-Inspector, Banda Circle). Neerja Srivastava, Deputy Commissioner and in-charge of the Divisional Flying Squad, was attached to the Gwalior headquarters.

The Banda police station in-charge and the Ghughra police outpost in-charge have also been suspended.

“Prima facie, it has been found that there had been some complaints in the area in the past few weeks, and the officials were aware of this but failed to act properly. Had they run a seizure campaign or taken any action, the sale could have been controlled. It was their responsibility,” Mr. Saxena, who is among the senior officials deployed in Sagar to handle the situation by the Chief Minister, said about the suspensions.

He denied that there were complaints from other districts, but said there has been a pattern in the production and sale of illicit liquor in Sagar.

“This is why we have deployed the team of the state flying squad in Sagar for the next few days. But we cannot label this as a single unfortunate incident and need to take lessons from this. We have instructed officials in all districts to run campaigns against such liquor by inspecting shops and visiting villages,” he said, adding that a meeting of excise officials from all districts has been scheduled for Monday.

“We will have to take this issue up in campaign mode by breaking the supply chain of illicit liquor. We will also conduct random inspections to check methyl alcohol content in liquor sold at shops to determine if it is counterfeit,” he said.

Earlier, Chief Minister Yadav said, “The news of death due to alcohol consumption in the Banda-Shahgarh area of Sagar district is extremely distressing and unfortunate. The in-charge Minister and officials of Sagar district have been directed to immediately investigate the incident and take the strictest possible action against the culprits. No guilty party will be spared in this matter after the investigation.”

The Madhya Pradesh Congress hit out at the BJP government, demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident, the arrest of those responsible within 24 hours, and a compensation of ₹25 lakh for each victim.

State Congress Jitu Patwari wrote to the Chief Minister saying, “The second such tragedy surfacing in Sagar is proof that the BJP government has not learned from the first incident! Don’t wait for the third warning now! Take action so severe that no more news of deaths from poisonous liquor emerges from any village in Sagar!”