Mysterious deaths in J&K: Centre’s team reaches Rajouri; death toll rises to 17

Jammu, Jan 19 (PTI) A high-level inter-ministerial team Sunday reached Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district where a mysterious illness is wreaking havoc, killing another person on Sunday and taking the death toll to 17.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had on Saturday ordered the constitution of an inter-ministerial team to ascertain the causes of deaths that took place within weeks in three families linked to each other in the remote Badhaal village.

Yasmeen Kousar, the last of the six children of Mohd Aslam undergoing treatment at SMGS hospital in Jammu, died this evening, officials said.

Kousar’s five siblings and grandparents died last week. Nine other members of two families had died in the village between December 7 and 12.

“J&K health department and other departments probed the deaths but the exact cause has not be found yet. The Home Minister has constituted a team of inter-ministerial experts and they have reached here,” Lt Governor Manoj Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

He said police have set up a special investigation team to probe the events from other angles. “We will brief you once the reality comes to the fore,” Sinha said.

Officials said the 16-member team arrived at Rajouri district headquarters this evening and is likely to visit the mountain village, 55km from the town, on Monday.

The central team will work in collaboration with the local administration to provide immediate relief to the victims.

Experts from some of the most reputable institutions in the country have been roped in to understand the causes of the deaths.

The patients complained of fever, pain, nausea and loss of consciousness before dying within days of their admission to hospitals.

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.