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Liquor poisoning: Relatives call for probe as seven die
View(s):Family members of seven people who died in hospital after being taken ill are calling for an investigation into claims that they died of natural causes, although they believed the deaths were linked to the liquor they consumed from a place at Pallewela in Mirigama.
By last night, seven persons who are said to have consumed liquor from the same illicit liquor den on July 31 and August 1 had died, their relatives said. Six had died in hospital while the body of another individual, who was reported missing, was recovered from a wooded area.
All those admitted to hospital had exhibited the same range of symptoms including body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea, hospital source said.
They said about 20 people who developed similar symptoms after allegedly consuming illicit liquor from the same location were being treated in hospitals in Mirigama, Divulapitiya, Wathupitiwala, Negombo, Gampaha, Ragama and Colombo.
Pallewela Police Office-in-Charge Kamal Rathnayaka, however, said that post-mortem examinations conducted on the bodies by the Negombo and Wathupitiwala Judicial Medical Officers had returned verdicts of death by natural causes.
He said no police complaints relating to the deaths had been made by last evening either. “We have to depend on the medical evidence. The post-mortem examinations conducted so far have revealed that the deaths have been due to natural causes,” the OIC said.