Raipur, July 24 (IANS) Three members of Chhattisgarh’s Pahari Korba tribal community, all from the same family, died after drinking spurious liquor in the state’s Surguja district, an official said Thursday. The incident took place Wednesday night in Paraswar village in Rajpur block, about 500 km from the state capital here.

“Six members of a family consumed a local brew and began vomiting. Three of them, including a middle-aged woman, died within an hour,” P.K. Srivastava, Surguja district chief medical officer, told IANS over phone.

He added that the other three people had been admitted to a government hospital and were improving.

Pahari Korba tribals live in the state’s Surguja, Jashpur and Korba districts. The community has been classified as one of the Primitive Tribal Groups (PTG) of India and has a literacy rate of about four percent.

Many Pahari Korba tribals die prematurely because they live in isolation on hill tops and rely on forests for food.