Srinagar: Even as the cause of a series of back-to-back deaths in Badhaal, a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir’s frontier Rajouri districts, remains a mystery, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday visited the bereaved families to show solidarity and pledge the government’s full support and promise justice. Among the 17 deaths that occurred in the village in the recent weeks, 13 were children in the age group of three to fifteen years.
The Chief Minister told the victims’ kin and other villagers that the government’s priority is to ensure “an immediate end to the spate of unfortunate deaths and prevention of such incidents in the future.” He said a detailed investigation is underway to determine the cause of the 17 deaths impacting three families.
“The civil administration and health department are actively addressing the matter, while the police have constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the incident. Additionally, a Central team has been deputed and is working diligently to uncover the reasons behind this unfortunate loss of life,” he said.
Earlier this week, a J&K government spokesperson had said that the investigations and samples empirically indicated that the incidents were not due to a communicable disease of bacterial or viral origin and that there is no public health angle. The J&K police had earlier set up a SIT after certain neurotoxins were found in the samples of the deceased. At the weekend, the district authorities sealed a spring in the village after its water tested positive for some pesticides and insecticides.
While talking about speculated untruths and rumours about the cause of these deaths, Mr. Abdullah told reporters that the official agencies have not yet been able to establish the reason behind these “tragic deaths.” He reiterated that the government’s priority is to stop this cycle of deaths and that it should not go beyond 17.
“Soon after learning about the tragedy, the officials of the health and other departments were rushed here, and they have been working to understand the cause behind these deaths. Tests were done, and we reached the conclusion that there was no bacteria or virus that caused these deaths, but we are yet to find the reason since it isn’t a disease,” he said.
The Chief Minister who was accompanied by his cabinet colleague Javed Rana, local MLA Javed Iqbal Choudhary, Deputy Commissioner of Rajouri Abhishek Sharma and other senior officials also visited the local cemetery to recite Fatiha for the deceased. He hugged Muhammad Aslam who lost his six children and his maternal uncle and aunt, who were issueless and had adopted him. The Chief Minister also met Muhammad Rafiq whose wife and three children died on December 12 and the kin of another resident Fazal Hussain who along with his four children were the first to fall prey.
A high-level inter-ministerial team formed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah had spent more than six hours in Badhaal which is about 55-km from the district headquarters of Rajouri on Monday for an on-the-spot investigation. The team which was accompanied by experts from some of the most reputed institutions in the country interacted with locals and officials and collected various samples for comprehensive analysis.
The team consisted of the officials of the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Agriculture, Fertilizers and Water Resources and specialists from animal husbandry, food safety, and forensic science laboratories, the officials said.
