HYDERABAD (India): At least 17 people have died from drinking toxic home-brewed alcohol in southern India, an official said on Monday, just weeks after a similar incident claimed 170 lives.Fifteen people died in tribal villages of Andhra Pradesh state over the New Year weekend and two more died on Monday, an official from the excise ministry in the state capital Hyderabad said.

“All of the victims were basically labourers. Three women are also among the dead,” he said, declining to be named.

The latest deaths came less than a month after 170 people died from consuming similar poisonous alcoholic drinks in the eastern state of West Bengal.

Poor workers who are unable to afford branded alcohol often turn to illegally brewed liquor for cheap intoxication.

Two Andhra Pradesh officials responsible for regulating alcohol have been suspended following the weekend deaths and liquor samples have been sent for chemical analysis.

The liquor may have been contaminated with methanol, a highly toxic alcohol sometimes used as an anti-freeze or fuel but also added to home-brewed liquor to increase alcoholic content.—AFP