Central team visits remote J&K village witnessing mysterious deaths

Rajouri/Jammu, Jan 20 (PTI) A high level inter-ministerial team on Monday visited Badhaal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district to ascertain the cause of death of 17 members of three families under mysterious circumstances, officials said.

The central team headed by a director-rank officer in the Ministry of Home Affairs reached Rajouri district headquarters on Sunday evening and received a briefing from senior district, health and police officers.

Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered the constitution of the inter-ministerial team to ascertain the causes of deaths in the three families linked to each other in a remote village, about 55 km from Rajouri town, between December 7 and January 19.

The officials said the team, accompanied by dozens of senior officers of various departments, reached Badhaal around 11.30 am and visited the bereaved families even as grave diggers were preparing the last resting place of Yasmeen Kousar (15), the sixth child of Mohd Aslam who breathed her last at the SMGS hospital in Jammu on Sunday evening.

The central team divided itself in two groups immediately after reaching the village and are undertaking their investigation, they said.

They said the body of the girl is expected to reach the village in a few hours from Jammu hospital and will be buried in the newly set up graveyard adjacent to her five siblings and grandparents who died over the past week. Nine members of two families had died in the village between December 7 and 12.

According to officials, the central team, in collaboration with the local administration, will work on providing immediate relief as well as taking precautionary measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

Experts from some of the most reputable institutions in the country have been arranged to manage the situation and understand the causes of the deaths.

The patients complained of fever, pain, nausea, intense sweating 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.

Police have also set up a Special Investigation Team after certain neurotoxins have been found in the samples of the deceased.

Authorities have recently sealed a spring in the village after its water has been tested positive for some pesticides/insecticides.

Additional Deputy Commissioner, Kotranka Sub-division, Dil Mir ordered the sealing of the spring along with deployment of two to three security personnel round-the-clock at the water resource in the village.