No fewer than 14 people have died and six others hospitalised after consuming toxic liquor  overnight in northern India, police said on Tuesday.

Maninder Singh, the senior police officer who revealed this, also said that seven people have been arrested on allegations that they supplied the toxic liquor.

Mr Singh said that the arrested persons were said to have supplied the liquor to five villages around 19 kilometers (12 miles) from the city of Amritsar in northern Punjab.

According to him, the police have launched a crackdown to destroy the network of spurious liquor supplies in the area following the incident.

Meanwhile, Sakshi Sawhney, a senior government official in Amritsar, said that the local administration has deployed medics to the villages to check on people who drank the contaminated liquor.

According to him, those showing symptoms are being shifted to hospitals to ensure the death toll does not rise.

Investigators, however, have not disclosed what ingredients were suspected of causing the deaths and illnesses.

In India, deaths from consumption of contaminated liquor manufactured locally are rampant, mainly in rural areas, as people lap them up for cheaper prices.

(AP/NAN)