More than two years after a batch of methanol-laced arrack tore through the villages around Kallakurichi, killing 70 people and leaving 161 with injuries ranging from blindness to permanent brain damage, a one-person commission of inquiry has concluded that it was neither an accident nor unforeseeable — but the direct result of a "cordial and illegal nexus" between hooch sellers and the very police and excise officials meant to stop them.
The Tamil Nadu government, then led by Chief Minister MK Stalin, constituted the one-person commission under retired Madras High Court judge Justice B Gokuldas on June 20, 2024, with a three-month deadline to submit its report.
The commission's final report was tabled in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on September 8, 2026, under the current TVK government led by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, more than two years after it was ordered.
Its central finding is unambiguous: if officers of the Prohibition and Excise Department, the police, and the Revenue Department had simply done the jobs the law already required of them, the report says, "the deadly chemical methanol could not have reached Kallakurichi from Chennai," and the tragedy "would not have happened."
What the commission was asked to do
The Tamil Nadu government constituted the one-person commission under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, the day after the scale of the poisoning became apparent. The commission was headquartered at the Chengalpattu Collectorate, and a camp office at the Kallakurichi Collectorate was set up. It was given four terms of reference:
To enquire into the causes and circumstances of the deaths caused by consumption of suspected methanol-laced illicit arrack in Karunapuram, Kallakurichi, on June 19 and 20, 2024, and to identify those responsible for dereliction of duty and wrongdoing.
To recommend measures to prevent a recurrence.
To examine the rules and regulations governing the storage, transport, sale and use of methanol, and recommend stricter penal provisions.
To recommend rehabilitation measures for affected families.
The commission examined 433 witnesses over 56 sittings — 421 at its Kallakurichi camp office, 12 at its Chengalpattu headquarters, and special sittings at Kalvarayan Hills.
Of these, 157 were survivors left with lasting injuries after drinking the poisoned liquor, and 69 were relatives of the 70 people who died. The remainder included police officers, prohibition and excise personnel, revenue and forest officials, health department staff, NGO representatives and social activists.
The tragedy, in numbers
The commission's report fixes the scale of the disaster more precisely than early news reports from June 2024, when the death toll climbed daily — from 35 to 47 to 58 and eventually to 70 — as more victims succumbed in hospitals across Kallakurichi, Salem, Villupuram and Puducherry.
According to the report, between June 17 and 20, 2024, more than 231 poor and vulnerable people across areas falling under the Kallakurichi, Sankarapuram and Kachirapalayam police station limits consumed illicitly brewed arrack that had been adulterated with methanol.
Of them, 70 died and 161 survived, many with partial or permanent disability. The dead and injured were overwhelmingly daily-wage earners, like head-load workers, masons, painters, farm labourers and flower vendors, whose daily income ranged from Rs 200 to Rs 1,000.
All those who consumed the liquor reported a common set of symptoms: blurred vision or loss of sight, nausea and vomiting, severe abdominal pain and dizziness, and an inability to walk, with numbness in the hands and feet.
Doctors who examined survivors and conducted post-mortems, including the head of the Medicine Department at Villupuram Government Medical College Hospital and doctors from its Nephrology department, told the commission these symptoms were consistent with methanol poisoning.
Barring three or four cases, every doctor who conducted a post-mortem on the 70 dead concluded that methanol toxicity was the cause of death, a finding corroborated by forensic laboratory reports on seized samples.
The report catalogues the injuries in granular detail.
Among those left with complete and permanent loss of vision in both eyes were Syed Ameer, Muthu, Mayakannan, Balu, Ravichandran, Anilpol and Thirumavalavan. Varadan lost his right eye entirely and partial vision in the left. Thangarasu lost vision in his right eye and had a testicle surgically removed. Others were left with partial vision loss, impaired hearing, and numbness in both legs.
Another victim, Ayyappan, suffered reduced cerebellar function. And one more victim, Pavadai, was left with mental disabilities and has lost the ability to speak.
Tracing the poison
The commission's most significant investigative finding is its reconstruction of the supply chain that carried methanol, a chemical solvent with no licence for human consumption, from Chennai to rural Kallakurichi.
Based on the statements of the investigating officer, Ms Gomathi (then Additional Superintendent of Police, Kallakurichi Cyber Crime Wing, and in full additional charge of the Crime Wing at Villupuram's district crime branch), and the confessional statements of the accused, the commission traced the chain as follows:
Bansilal, who ran an unlicensed chemical business called Divya Chemicals in Kosapet, Chennai, sold six barrels (200 litres each) of what he called "mixed thinner/diluent" to Mahesh, a resident of Madukarai, Puducherry, on June 10, 2024. Forensic analysis later confirmed this liquid was methanol.
Mahesh sold three of the six barrels to Nadupaiyan alias Joseph, of Veeriyur village in Kallakurichi district, who decanted it into 17 cans and sold it to Chinnadurai of Seshasamudram.
Chinnadurai in turn supplied it to retail bootleggers, principally Kannukutty, alias Govindaraj of Karunapuram, and Sadayan of Devapandalam, and to Ramar, alias "Poosari" Ramar of Madavaseri, who mixed the chemical with water or with arrack sourced from the Kalvarayan Hills before selling it to consumers.
A separate accused, Gautam Chand Jain, who ran a chemicals business dealing in acetone, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, mixed thinner and other solvents, sold Mahesh a consignment described as "mixed thinner" that forensic analysis identified as Tramadol, a psychotropic substance under the NDPS Act, sold onwards to Joseph, though the commission notes this particular batch was fortunately not sold to consumers.
Forensic analysis of samples recovered from the arrests confirmed methanol in most samples, with methanol and ethanol both present in some. Neither Bansilal (dealing in the chemical since 2014) nor any of the other sellers in the chain held the DL-I or DL-II licences required under the Tamil Nadu Denatured Spirit, Methyl Alcohol and Varnish (French Polish) Rules, 1959, to purchase, transport, store or sell methanol. This, the commission says, ought to have been "easily" noticed by Prohibition and Excise officials with jurisdiction over Bansilal's premises had they been diligent.
At the village level, retail sellers — Kannukutty alias Govindaraj, his brother Thamodharan, and Govindaraj's wife Vijaya in Karunapuram; Ramar in Madavaseri; Chinnadurai in Seshasamudram; and Sadayan in Devapandalam — mixed the methanol-laced diluent with water or country arrack to stretch its volume and maximise profit, "irrespective of the consequences," and sold it to unsuspecting buyers who believed they were purchasing ordinary arrack.
The ‘arithmetic of addiction’
A witness testified that Kannukutty would purchase raw arrack from the Kalvarayan Hills, store it in a coconut grove, mix it with hot water, and then blend in methanol procured from Andhra Pradesh in a specific ratio.
On the morning of the incident, a man named Chinnapaiyan prepared this mixture in the presence of Vijaya and Thamodharan's wife and later died after drinking the very liquor he had helped prepare.
Another witness told the commission that after two of Kannukutty's own workers fell unconscious from drinking the liquor, Vijaya and Thamodharan asked that sales continue in order to recover the money they had invested.
A large section of the report is devoted to explaining why the poor of Kallakurichi turned to illicit arrack in the first place.
Kallakurichi, the commission notes, is a backward district with no major industry. Agriculture (chiefly tapioca and paddy) leaves labourers without work for large parts of the year. The report says that prolonged ineffective prohibition policy since 1971 has driven a large section of the population into habitual drinking.
The commission lays out what it calls the “arithmetic of addiction”: a daily-wage labourer typically starts by drinking a quarter (180 ml) of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) to relieve body pain after work but develops tolerance over time and needs two quarters, costing around Rs 400, to get the same relief.
A head-load worker or farm labourer earning Rs 200 to Rs 1,000 a day cannot regularly afford that and turns to illicit arrack, sold in 100 ml sachets for Rs 50-60. These are available round the clock near their homes and workplaces, critically, including in the early morning hours (6 am–9 am) when TASMAC outlets are shut and labourers want a drink before heading to work.
The report also describes an informal ‘licensing’ system in some villages under Sankarapuram and Kachirapalayam police limits, where village welfare committees comprising village elders auctioned the right to sell illicit arrack within village boundaries.
The report cites a witness describing a payment of Rs 5,00,000 to the village of Mallikaipadi for permission to sell, with proceeds reportedly used for temple festivals and other community purposes. Residents who object are threatened with social ostracism. The commission says police and revenue officials in these areas were aware of this practice and did nothing.
Turned away from hospital
One of the most damning episodes in the report concerns Praveen, a teenager from Kallakurichi who drank Kannukutty's liquor on the evening of June 18, 2024, and developed burning eyes and leg pain.
He was taken to Kallakurichi Government Medical College Hospital around 3 am on June 19. According to his mother, Rejina's testimony, corroborated by the then Superintendent of Police Samay Singh Meena, doctors on duty sent him home saying they "cannot treat a man who is drunk" and that treatment "would not help anyway”.
His pain worsened, and he was brought back around 7 am. He died by 10 am the same day, his treatment having failed. The commission found that the case was never registered as a medico-legal case, no information was sent to the nearest police station, and extraordinarily, his body was not autopsied at the time but handed over to relatives.
Praveen’s body had to be exhumed and sent for post-mortem to Villupuram Government Medical College Hospital only after more people began dying with identical symptoms and after his uncle Suresh, who had consumed the same liquor, also died.
Had Praveen's case been treated as a suspected poisoning from the outset, the commission says, police could have registered a case and gone on alert — potentially saving roughly eleven more lives lost to the same liquor later that day and preventing 71 further injuries.
The commission has, however, declined to recommend disciplinary action against the doctors, citing lack of time to examine most of them individually and fairness concerns about acting on the mother's testimony alone.
The report identifies several structural failures that, taken together, allowed the trade to flourish unchecked:
Chronic understaffing of police
Diversion of police to VIP duty
Election-year transfers of officers
No coordination between police and revenue officials
Difficult terrain and lack of resources in Kalvarayan Hills
Only two prohibition enforcement wings for the entire district
‘A cordial and illegal nexus’
Perhaps the report's most pointed finding concerns Kannukutty, alias Govindaraj, the principal seller whose liquor killed the majority of the victims. The commission's tally shows roughly 59 of the 70 deaths, and 81 of the 161 injuries are attributable to liquor sold by him and his brother Thamodharan.
Despite operating for years within 250 metres of Kallakurichi police station and 200 metres of the district court complex, and despite the neighbouring Villupuram district's Marakkanam hooch tragedy of May 2023 having occurred barely 13 months earlier, no prohibition case was ever registered against Kannukutty or his family for selling illicit arrack before this incident. Only cases relating to the sale of IMFL in the black market were registered.
Witnesses told the commission that Kannukutty openly boasted that monthly and weekly bribes to police and excise officials of Rs 2,000–3,000 meant "nobody could touch him" and that he could pay off any inspecting officer who turned up with a few thousand rupees.
The commission concludes this demonstrates a "cordial and illegal nexus" between local police and the liquor trade.
Who the commission holds responsible
In its findings, the commission places responsibility on four broad categories of officials
Prohibition and Excise Department officers with jurisdiction over Bansilal's and Gautam Chand Jain's Chennai premises for failing to ensure methanol was stored, transported and sold only to licensed persons, and for failing to detect and act against unlicensed dealing.
Police personnel: Sub-Inspectors, Inspectors and Deputy Superintendents serving at the Kallakurichi, Sankarapuram and Kachirapalayam law-and-order police stations and at the Kallakurichi and Thirukoilur prohibition enforcement wings, for wilful negligence and collusion that let the illicit trade flourish unchecked.
Revenue officials: Village assistants, village administrative officers (VAO), revenue inspectors and tahsildars in Kallakurichi, Sankarapuram and Kachirapalayam taluks.
The commission recommends that departmental enquiries be initiated against officers who held these posts between May 2023 (the month of the Marakkanam tragedy in the neighbouring district) and June 19, 2024, the date of this incident.
The report separately singles out VAO Agalya of Madhavaseri-North, who learnt on the morning of June 19 that a villager, Jayamurugan, had died after drinking the poisoned liquor the previous night, but neither arranged a post-mortem nor informed her superiors, the health department or police.
Had this lapse not occurred, the commission says, it could have prevented some of the deaths and injuries that followed later that day and evening in the same area.
It also flags the then Kallakurichi Superintendent of Police, Samay Singh Meena, for failing to act with sufficient urgency once he learned around 11.30 am on June 19 that four people from Karunapuram had been admitted with breathlessness. The report does acknowledge that he rushed to the hospital within 15 minutes, coordinated a seven-team village sweep with the district collector, and ensured an FIR was registered by 11.30 am that day.
The regulatory history of methanol in Tamil Nadu
A substantial section of the report traces how methanol came to fall outside the ambit of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937, for nearly two decades.
Methanol was originally covered by the Act, but in 1984 — responding to a request from the (then) Tamil Nadu Manufacturers' Association (now the Chemical Industries Association) and a recommendation of the Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation — the government exempted it from the Prohibition Act via G.O. (Ms) No. 1182 dated September 4, 1984, to encourage the growth of chemical industries in the state.
It remained, however, within the ambit of the Poisons Act, 1919, and the Petroleum Act, 1934/Petroleum Rules, 1976.
Following a series of hooch tragedies between 1991 and 2000 in which 275 of 345 deaths (roughly 79.7%) were attributed to methanol, the state government, on the recommendation of the Additional Director General of Police (Enforcement), brought methanol back under the Prohibition Act via GO (Ms) No 50 dated February 18, 2002.
Since then, methanol's purchase, storage and use have required a DL-I licence (wholesale, granted by the government) or DL-II licence (possession/use, granted by the Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise) under the 1959 Rules.
None of the accused in this case possessed the required licences, the commission found.
The report also notes that multiple government circulars and standing orders on curbing methanol misuse were issued after the May 2023 Marakkanam tragedy, all of which were "blatantly violated".
Primary recommendations
The state had already announced and disbursed Rs 10 lakh in compensation to the families of 69 of the 70 people who died (one migrant worker's family from Uttar Pradesh could not be traced with the required documents) and Rs 50,000 to each of the 161 survivors.
The commission calls these measures "not only reasonable but adequate", commending Stalin for announcing them swiftly.
The commission further recommends an additional Rs 2,00,000 for each of roughly 16 named survivors left with partial permanent disability (largely vision loss). It also recommends an additional Rs 5,00,000 for each of around 9 named survivors with complete permanent disability (including total blindness in both eyes).
The commission has also recommended priority admissions to government welfare hostels and relaxed recruitment norms for government jobs for children orphaned by the tragedy.
The report names two such families in detail: the children of a Karunapuram couple who both died in the incident and three siblings in Madhavaseri who lost both parents.
Government jobs or continued educational support are to be ensured on a case-by-case basis for more than 20 named bereaved families across Kallakurichi, Seshasamudram, Veerasozhapuram, Madhavaseri and Coimbatore. This includes widows seeking regularisation of temporary government jobs, engineering and nursing graduates seeking employment, and school- and college-going children who require support to continue their studies.
Widow pensions are to be granted to bereaved wives, and education loans for children of the deceased.
Survivors' families, the commission suggests, can be offered long-term, low-interest loans to start small businesses.
Five-bed de-addiction centres are to be attached to every Primary Health Centre (PHC), upgraded PHC and urban PHC, staffed by a doctor and a trainee doctor from the nearest medical college, with weekly visits from a psychiatrist and adequate medicine stocks. Revenue officials are to be tasked with identifying and referring people needing de-addiction counselling.
Further recommendations
The commission has also recommended investing fines collected under the enhanced section 4(1-A) provisions into a dedicated rehabilitation fund for victims' families and amending the Act to allow confiscation of illicit wealth earned by prohibition offenders to be channelled into the same fund.
The commission further recommends amending section 11 of the 1937 Act (or invoking section 239 of the BNS) to make dereliction of statutory duty by police and excise and revenue officials an explicitly punishable offence under sections 35 and 36 of the Prohibition Act. The commission found no precedent of any official ever being criminally prosecuted for such a lapse.
Independent, apolitical district-level committees may be set up under the leadership of a retired district and sessions judge. The committee may include the collector or a revenue divisional officer, the superintendent of police, the relevant prohibition enforcement wing's deputy superintendent and the district's deputy commissioner of prohibition and excise.
The commitee must meet monthly and recommend criminal prosecution of erring officials.
The commission has also emphasised the rigorous enforcement of section 52-E of the Prohibition Act (as amended in 2024), which allows courts to ban habitual offenders from a district for up to two years after a third conviction.
This provision, the commission found, had simply never been used against Kallakurichi's most notorious sellers, including Kannukutty, despite his long history of offences.
Lastly, a permanent inter-departmental coordination committee at the district level involving police, revenue, prohibition/excise and forest officials is to be set up. A coordination officer of at least head constable rank is to be appointed at each police sub-jurisdiction. This officer will be accountable — through escalating disciplinary and eventually criminal action — if more than two prohibition offences occur in their area within 30 days.