Spurious liquor has now killed 15 people in villages in the Banda-Shahgarh area of Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh, India, after two more victims died during treatment on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, Superintendent of Police Anurag Sujania told PTI Videos. One of the 15 dead is himself an accused in the bootlegging network, Sujania told PTI Videos on September 8. Nearly 40 people are still in hospital, three of them critical. Deaths began the night of Saturday, September 5, and the toll has risen daily since, with local media putting the unofficial count as high as 22.
The Sagar district administration maintained the death toll at 15 as of September 9. “The condition of all the patients admitted to hospitals is continuously improving. So far, 15 people have died in this incident. We are talking to people and conducting awareness programmes in the area,” District Collector Pratibha Pal said.
The villagers had been drinking on Saturday night and sickened soon after, with nausea, vomiting and blurred vision, before being rushed for treatment. The first deaths came that night. By Sunday, September 6, 11 people had died; the count stood at 12 by Monday morning and rose to 13 that afternoon after another patient died. All of the dead were men between 30 and 50, Pal said.
Why the Numbers Do Not Match
Different counts are circulating because they measure different things at different hours. The 13 belongs to the district administration and was carried by the Press Trust of India on Monday. Counting deaths in treatment across all four hospitals, The Free Press Journal reported 19 deaths and 109 people under care by Monday afternoon. The Deccan Chronicle carried an unofficial toll of 22, noting that “the official death figure however is put at 12.” Jitu Patwari, the state Congress president, has claimed 50 — a figure no official source supports.
The hospital counts are firmer than the death counts. Roughly 96 people were still under treatment on Monday, seven of them critical; two dozen had been discharged earlier that day. The Free Press Journal’s higher tally spread patients across four sites: 85 at Bundelkhand Medical College in Sagar, 12 of them in intensive care; 17 at the Sagar District Hospital; and seven at the civil hospital at Banda. A patient in critical condition was airlifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhopal.
Sujania had given an earlier account on Sunday morning, describing a group of villagers taken to hospital of whom five were declared dead and six were in serious condition. Accurate to that morning, the snapshot has since been overtaken. Spurious liquor is the term used in India for illicit or adulterated alcohol sold outside the licensed supply chain.
Methanol Suspected, Not Confirmed
Officials have hedged carefully on the cause. “The post mortem of the deceased point to suspected poisoning. We have sent the viscera for testing,” Pal said. A senior doctor treating the patients told the Press Trust of India that the liquor may have been laced with methanol instead of ethanol, and said methanol causes blurred vision — a complaint from most of those brought in, including those who died. Devesh Pateriya, the chief medical and health officer, was more cautious still, saying the symptoms could indicate methyl alcohol poisoning but that this had not been confirmed.
Sujania said poisoning was suspected in the deaths, with the exact cause to be established once the post-mortem reports come in. Samples of viscera and liquor have been sent to a forensic laboratory for chemical analysis.
Officials said as of September 9 that the antidote fomepizole, used in cases of suspected toxic alcohol poisoning, has helped save the lives of more than 30 people so far.
A Complaint That Went Nowhere
What is driving the political row is that a warning reached the authorities first. A licensed liquor contractor had complained to the excise department about a counterfeit brand being sold locally as Bombay Whisky, and it is alleged that no effective action followed. Sagar Gold, the brand the victims are said to have actually drunk, has since been banned outright in neighboring Jabalpur district, where the assistant excise commissioner on September 6 ordered shops to seal and seize their stock and to send samples for laboratory testing.