KANPUR: Five persons, including a former sub-inspector of police, died and more than a dozen fell seriously ill after consuming liquor purchased from a country-made liquor shop at Dulgaon village in Sachendi area of Kanpur on Saturday morning.The excise department has sounded an alert to prevent further sale of liquor, particularly of batch no: 42, supplied by an Unnao distillery.An FIR has been lodged against shop's contractor, Shyam Balak, who is absconding. Police identified the deceased as Rajendra Kamal (45), Umesh Shukla (32), Ratnesh Shukla (28), Umesh Chandra (31) and former SI Jagjivan Ram (62). Police said that the victims consumed liquor on Friday night and started vomiting."The symptoms suggest they had consumed poisonous liquor," said a senior excise official at LLR Hospital.District magistrate (DM) Surendra Singh, who visited Dulgaon with SSP Akhilesh Kumar Meena and excise officials, said, "A probe has been ordered. Samples of liquor have been collected from the shop and sent to laboratory for test."Doctors of Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital , most patients, along with nausea and vomiting also complained of blurred vision and itching in their eyes."It's because of the consumption of a high dosage of methyl alcohol and will be cured only with proper medication which will reduced the toxicity in their blood gradually. The blurred vision possibly followed by blindness is one of the deadliest side-effects of methyl poisoning," they added.

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