BADHAAL, Jan 21: Asserting that a probe is underway to unravel the mystery behind 17 deaths in this village of Rajouri district, Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah today assured people that all questions will be answered soon.
Talking to reporters during his visit to the village to express sympathy with the bereaved families, Abdullah said building big hospitals everywhere is not possible but inadequacy in the health sector at district levels will be addressed to provide better healthcare facilities to people in remote pockets.
Seventeen persons, including 13 children, belonging to three related families died under mysterious circumstances here between December 7 and January 19.
“Why this happened? We need an answer to this question. It’s not a disease, so a police investigation is underway. They have formed a special investigation team and will complete their probe.
“The Centre has also deputed a team which is collecting samples and doing their activities. I want to assure all that the joint efforts of civil administration, police and the government of India will find out the answers to all questions about what had happened,” the chief minister said.
He said his government responded immediately on getting information about the tragedy.
“The health department mobilized its teams and also involved other departments…the district administration also tried to understand the reasons (behind the deaths).
“First, the focus was to know whether this is the result of any disease and in case it is a disease our biggest responsibility was to ensure that it does not spread. All the tests were conducted and the results revealed that there are no bacteria or viruses,” the chief minister said.
He said the investigation is ongoing and so far no concrete reason was found about the unfortunate deaths in the three families, mostly of children.
Asked about opposition criticism of his government over the handling of the situation, Abdullah said he would not like to do politics on such a happening.
“…Had we worked in haste and taken any wrong step, then you would have blamed us (for the deaths). The administration responded to the situation in a right way and the local MLA (Javaid Iqbal Choudhary) was there on the ground, taking the people into confidence and keeping them informed.
“We took time because we failed to establish the reason for the deaths. But we will expose the truth though it will take two or three more days and we have no issues with it,” he said, adding “we will come out with the answers to all the questions”.
The Chief Minister said he had talked to the deputy commissioner and the MLA who have given some suggestions which will be implemented soon.
Responding to another question about the need to improve health infrastructure, the chief minister said you cannot build big hospitals everywhere, which are sanctioned as far as need, population, requirement and situation.
“Big hospitals cannot be built in remote areas but we will try to address any shortcoming in community health centres, public health centres and sub-district hospitals with the passage of time,” he said.
Meanwhile, a high level inter-ministerial team continued its probe for the second day on Tuesday to ascertain the cause of death of 17 members of three families in Badhaal village of Rajouri district, officials said.
The central team headed by a director-rank officer in the Ministry of Home Affairs spent nearly six hours in the village on Monday as part of the probe.
The team returned to Badhaal village this morning from Rajouri and resumed their activities like collecting samples, and interacting with surviving members of three families and the villagers, the officials said.
Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered the constitution of the inter-ministerial team to ascertain the causes of death in the three families linked to each other in the remote village, about 55 km from Rajouri town, between December 7 and January 19.
Earlier, a Jammu and Kashmir government spokesperson said 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.
A Special Investigation Team was set up after certain neurotoxins have been found in the samples of the deceased.
Authorities recently sealed a spring in the village after its water tested positive for some pesticides/insecticides.
The people in the village, having a mixed population, are hopeful that the probe will unveil the mystery behind the sudden death of 17 villagers, including 13 children.
Surjeet Singh Thakur, a local resident said the entire village is in the grip of fear and grief but “we are standing together in this testing time”.
“We have been living in harmony and we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the bereaved families,” he said.
