Close on the heels of the double hooch tragedy at Kalluvathuckal and Pallickal areas in Kollam, reports have come of the killer brew claiming three lives at Pattazhi in the district on Monday taking the number of deaths since Saturday to 29, police said in Kollam. According to the police, the Kalluvathuckal incident had so far accounted for 17 persons. Nine deaths were reported from Pallickal and three from Pattazhi. It was not clearly known whether the victims from Pattazhi had consumed the hooch brought from nearby Pallickal. All the three died after reaching the Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram. Sources at the medical college said that the flow of victims to the special ward had abated and 206 persons were still in the hospital undergoing treatment for liquor poisoning.

The Kollam hooch tragedy was the third worst in the series of liquor deaths reported in Kerala since 1981. The worst was on September three, 1982 at Vypeen in Ernakulam in which 78 people died followed by the Punalur liquor tragedy in 1981, which claimed 34 lives. Meanwhile, the government on Monday suspended ten excise officials including an assistant commissioner on the basis of the preliminary inquiry report on the hooch tragedy submitted by the official inquiry committee constituted on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Congress-led Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala on Monday sought the resignation of Excise Minister T Sivadasa Menon owning moral responsibility for the Kalluvathukkal-Pallickal hooch tragedy in Kollam district. Bureau Report