J&K mysterious deaths: Toll rises to 15, police form SIT to find cause of fatalities

A nine-year-old girl died at a hospital in Jammu on Wednesday, taking the number of mysterious deaths in a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district to 15 in one-and-a-half months while the police set up a special investigation team to probe the reason for the fatalities.

Jammu and Kashmir Health Minister Sakeena Masood ruled out any mysterious disease as the reason for the deaths in Badhaal village, saying all tests conducted both within and outside the Union Territory have shown negative results.

On Wednesday evening, Zabeena, who was undergoing treatment at the SMGS hospital in Jammu, died, the officials said, adding her four other siblings and their grandfather died over the past four days.

All the victims showed similar symptoms such as vomiting and loss of consciousness, they said, adding that six children of Mohammad Aslam were admitted to the hospital on Sunday and only one of them was still fighting for life.

The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP launched a scathing attack on the National Conference-led government in the Union Territory for its "inaction" over the deaths and urged the Centre to rush experts to properly investigate the cause of the fatalities.

"The Omar Abdullah-led administration has failed to prioritise the health and safety of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Such negligence is unacceptable and the government must take immediate responsibility to ensure that this crisis is brought under control," Jammu and Kashmir BJP spokesperson Tahir Choudhary said.

Amid growing concern over the mysterious deaths, the administration has directed officials to analyse reports from institutions to identify the cause of the deaths.

Initial reports indicate the presence of certain neurotoxins in the samples of the deceased, which are being further investigated to determine the reasons behind these fatalities.

Senior Superintendent of Police of Rajouri Gaurav Sikarwar said the 11-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by the Superintendent of Police (operations) Budhal, Wajahat Hussain, has been formed keeping in view the sensitivity of the inquest proceedings initiated into the deaths.

Apart from police officials, the team also included experts from the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department, Microbiology Department, Paediatrics Department and the Pathology Department.

According to an order, the SIT in charge will also use the service of experts from food safety, agriculture, Jal Shakti (Public Health Engineering) Departments and experts of the FSL team, Jammu, for investigation. It has been directed to share the progress of the investigation with the district police office on a weekly basis.

Earlier during the day, Jammu and Kashmir Health Minister Masood expressed concern over the mysterious deaths and said that the police and the civil administration would undertake a speedy probe to unveil the mystery.

"The health department has mobilised its entire machinery after getting information about five deaths and screened 3,500 villagers going door to door. It took samples from the villagers and sent those for testing in various laboratories both within and outside Jammu and Kashmir. "Three more people died a few days later, prompting the department to seek the assistance of the country's premier health institutions. Their teams arrived here and carried out a detailed investigation," Masood told reporters.

She said the mysterious deaths started occurring again after a gap of more than 40 days and it is evident that if the fatalities were caused by any disease, it would have spread immediately and would not have been restricted to three families living in close vicinity.

All tests conducted within and outside Jammu and Kashmir, including at the Indian Council of Medical Research in Pune, National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi, Defence Research and Development Establishment in Gwalior and the microbiology department at PGI-Chandigarh, have returned negative results, the minister said. She added that same is the case with reports of samples of water and other food items collected from the area.

"The health department could not find any disease, virus or infection that caused the deaths," said Masood, who visited the village last month to take stock of the situation.