At least 28 people were killed and 61 others got sick after drinking alcohol adulterated with an unknown chemical in western India.

According to senior government official Mukesh Parmar, the accidental deaths took place in the Ahmedabad and Botad districts of Gujarat state, where the manufacture and consumption of alcohol is prohibited.

Police have detained several people suspected of being the bootleggers behind the deadly brew, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol is common in India, where illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency.

Illegal liquor brew has also become a hugely profitable industry across India where bootleggers pay no taxes and sell enormous quantities of their product to the poor at a cheap rate.

The dangers posed by illegally brewed alcohol are extreme in India, where unscrupulous brewers will add chemicals including pesticides to their concoctions to increase potency.

In 2020 alone, at least 120 people were known to have lost their lives after drinking contaminated illegal liquor in the northern Punjab state.