Villupuram

The elderly man, when he heard that liquor stocks were being shifted from four neighbourhood outlets to a warehouse, lined up in front of the shops at Janakipuram here along with scores of other consumers.

They desperately pleaded with officials to sell them any alcoholic beverage. Despite police presence and authorities telling consumers that stocks cannot be sold because of lockdown, they continued to mill around the premises on Tuesday with a hope that officials would relent.

“The sexagenarian, after trying his luck in three other shops, came to the fourth one and tried his best to get a bottle of liquor but could not and he fainted.

We rushed him to a government hospital in an ambulance, but hospital authorities pronounced him brought dead,” a senior district police officer said.

Following the lockdown, at least four men have died recently in Tamil Nadu, after they consumed shaving lotion and varnish, falsely believing that these would give them a high and were not harmful.

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