Relatives of a victim weep as they wait for the body at a hospital in Bangalore. (PTI)

Chennai, May 20: As the toll in the spurious liquor tragedy touched 107 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, questions abounded on what led to the calamity.

Methanol or methyl alcohol in the illicitly brewed liquor is suspected to be the cause of the deaths.

Till 5pm on Tuesday, the number of deaths in Tamil Nadu, at Hosur and Denkanikotta taluks, had risen to 41 with five persons perishing during the day. At least 16 more people died in Karnataka, where the third phase of elections to the Assembly is due on Thursday.

Police in the two states arrested 49 bootleggers and launched a hunt for the main accused, Sounder Raj. Nine excise officials have been suspended in Karnataka, where the methanol is suspected to have been sourced from.

Sources wondered whether the action was a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy that was waiting to happen because of the free availability of illegal cheap country arrack in Karnataka that is often adulterated with methyl alcohol. The sale of illicit arrack is relatively under check in Tamil Nadu.

Krishnagiri district, in which the two worst-affected Hosur and Denkanikotta taluks are located, has a good diffusion of state-owned wine shops that sell Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL).

But the illicitly brewed liquor across the border in Karnataka is still more attractive as it costs less. A 250ml sachet of arrack costs just Rs 5, the sources said.

Most of the victims in the tragedy unfolding for the last three days are day labourers who cross over to Karnataka for work, primarily at construction sites.

“It is common for people returning from work to consume the cheap arrack sold in sachets more as a pain reliever,” a source said. But this time, there was either a mix of some toxic stuff in the drink or the fermentation process at some level had turned poisonous, they added.

The sources said that on the eve of the second phase of polling in Karnataka last Friday, thousands of arrack sachets had been offloaded in the border areas and distributed free.

As the arrack came as a freebie, this was an added incentive during the last weekend for migrant workers from Tamil Nadu to grab more of these packets, leading to higher casualties.

Another factor related to the model code of conduct requiring liquor shops to close for three days before the polling date, the sources said.

Bangalore and some districts south of it went to the polls on May 10, and with the code being enforced, the regular wine shops downed shutters. This triggered a greater demand for the illicitly brewed arrack.

Sources said those who had diluted the brew with water and consumed it had survived, but those who preferred to down the stuff raw had suffered the most.

Regional political parties in Tamil Nadu, such as the PMK, have been demanding a total ban on the sale of any form of liquor as the drinking habit has robbed households of precious savings.

The PMK had based its contention on the official figures released in the latest “Policy Note on Prohibition and Excise”, which showed that the sale of IMFL brands had gone up sharply in Tamil Nadu from 100.43 lakh cases in 1996-97 to 196.36 lakh cases in 2007-08.

The upswing in the sale of beer has been even more dramatic during this same period, from 139.57 lakh cases to 306.24 lakh cases, prompting the PMK to argue that Tamil Nadu had become one of the highest alcohol-consuming states.

But the ruling DMK countered that were it not for the reasonably cheap but safe-to-drink IMFL brands and beer brands available through the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation network shops, the temptation among the people to switch over to life-threatening illicit liquor would be higher.

Sources said the latest tragedy had shown that availability of good-quality and cheaper liquor would at least avert such mass deaths.