The death toll from spurious liquor in the Banda-Shahgarh area of Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, India, has risen almost daily since the first deaths on the night of Saturday, September 5, 2026 — and more than a week on, no two counts agree. Food and Civil Supplies Minister Govind Singh Rajput put the toll at 20 on September 14; the Press Trust of India had the official figure at 16 a day earlier, and the administration’s own count reached 18 on September 12, after a panchayat secretary, Ajay Lodhi, 30, died. Local reporting has gone as high as 33, and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh puts it at 43.
Villagers who drank that night fell ill soon afterward with nausea, vomiting and blurred vision. District Collector Pratibha Pal said on September 7, when the toll stood at 13, that the dead were men between 30 and 50; the names released since run wider. The first 11 identified ranged in age from 28 to 56. Among the dead is Shyam Bai Ahirwar, 50, of Chhapri, a woman left at home while her family attended a relative’s funeral.
About 30 to 35 patients were still at Bundelkhand Medical College on Sunday, September 13. Rajput visited the next day, said three patients with serious eye damage had been sent to AIIMS Bhopal, and said compensation would reach bereaved families’ accounts within three days. At the peak more than a hundred were in hospital across four facilities, a dozen in intensive care, and one critically ill patient was airlifted to Bhopal. Fomepizole, an antidote for suspected toxic alcohol poisoning, has been central; the medical college dean, P.S. Thakur, said it helped save more than 30 lives.
Methanol Suspected but Not Confirmed
No laboratory result has been made public. “The post mortem of the deceased point to suspected poisoning. We have sent the viscera for testing,” Pal said. A senior doctor told the Press Trust of India that methanol rather than ethanol may have laced the liquor, and that most of those who came in complained of the blurred vision it causes. Devesh Pateria, the chief medical and health officer, said the symptoms could indicate methyl alcohol poisoning but that this was unconfirmed.
The Warning That Went Nowhere
The political row turns on the authorities having been warned first. A licensed liquor contractor complained to the excise department that a counterfeit brand was being sold locally as Bombay Whisky; no effective action is alleged to have followed. Sagar Gold, the brand the victims are said to have actually drunk, sold for 50 rupees a quarter bottle against 70 for the legitimate product — a 20-rupee gap that made it move.
Neighboring Jabalpur district banned the brand on September 6, ordering stock sealed and tested — then amended the order the same day, on the ground that no such stock existed there. Sanjeev Kumar Dubey, the assistant excise commissioner who issued it, was served a show-cause notice giving him 15 days to explain acting before any chemical test.
Excise officials confiscated bottles from a local outlet and sealed six shops. Police say they have located the illicit distillery. Early inquiries pointed across the state line to Lalitpur, in Uttar Pradesh, where police rejected the suggestion outright. “No illegal liquor of any kind is being produced anywhere in Lalitpur from spirit or chemicals,” Additional Superintendent Kalu Singh said on September 8.
Two Encounters, Nineteen in Custody
Nineteen of the 30 named accused are in custody, across separate cases lodged by victims’ families; police have shot two while making arrests. On Friday, September 11, officers caught up with the main accused, Ravi Lakhera, 45, in forest near Baraytha, 40 kilometers from the district headquarters. He opened fire and was shot in the leg when officers returned it, police said. He remained in hospital, not yet taken on remand, as of Sunday, September 13.
Two days later police shot and arrested a second suspect, Shivanjay Rajput, 21, of Chhapri, who carried a 30,000-rupee reward. He fired three rounds near the Kathua Nala forest early Sunday, September 13, and was hit in the leg when officers fired back, police said.
Three excise officials and two police personnel have been suspended, and a divisional flying squad officer moved to Gwalior. Bulldozers demolished five establishments belonging to three of the accused on September 10 and two more, a resort and a dhaba, on September 12. “Government land has been freed from all these establishments,” Pal said.
Pal ordered a magisterial inquiry in the first days. On September 9 the chief minister ordered a judicial inquiry as well, and the commission was constituted on Saturday, September 12 under Vishnu Pratap Singh Chouhan, a retired Madhya Pradesh High Court judge. It has three months to report on the causes of the deaths, the conduct of excise and police officials and how to prevent a recurrence.
The Chief Minister in Sagar
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav called the matter sensitive and promised the strictest possible action. He travelled to Sagar on September 9, meeting patients and saying the accused faced charges carrying life imprisonment and the death penalty.
Yadav announced four lakh rupees for each bereaved family, conveyed at the medical college on September 6 by Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla, the health minister and minister in charge of Sagar district. The Congress has called that inadequate and wants 25 lakh. “The Excise Department, the Police Department, and BJP leaders — all three are culpable,” said Digvijaya Singh, the senior Congress leader and former chief minister, who visited patients again on September 13. Umang Singhar, the leader of the opposition, announced 50,000 rupees to bereaved families and pressed a narrower question about the Jabalpur order: “Why was the order changed within a few hours? Under whose pressure was the order changed?”
Sagar district sits about 180 kilometers northeast of Bhopal.
The forensic results are outstanding, three separate inquiries are continuing, and officials have not said the toll is final.
