After the deaths of 14 persons including 11 children in a remote village of the border district of Rajouri due to mysterious diseases, the Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday constituted an 11-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the mysterious deaths.
The decision to formulate SIT of the Police was taken after Health Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Sakeena Masood made it clear that the health department could not find any disease, virus, or infection that caused the deaths.
According to an official order, the SIT will be led by Superintendent of Police (Operations), Budhal, Wajahat Hussain. The team includes the Deputy Superintendent of Police Kandi, Station House Officers of Police Station Kandi, and Women’s Police Station Rajouri, along with officials and experts from forensic medicine, toxicology, microbiology, pediatrics, and pathology departments.
Additionally, the SIT will seek expertise from professionals in food safety, agriculture, the Jal Shakti Department, and the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Jammu.
“The team will make all sincere efforts to conclude the inquest proceedings at the earliest,” the order reads.
Medical experts could not find any disease, virus or infection
Earlier, Health Minister Sakeena Masood said that teams of experts, who collected samples from the affected village and adjoining localities and screened many people, could not find any disease, virus, or infection.
Interacting with media persons, the Health Minister said that all the test reports conducted within and outside Jammu and Kashmir, including at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Pune, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi, Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE) in Gwalior and the microbiology department at the PGI-Chandigarh, have returned negative results, and so has been the case with the samples of water and other food items.
The Health Minister said that the real cause of the deaths is a matter of investigation. “We have directed the police and the district administration of Rajouri to investigate the deaths of the children under mysterious circumstances”, she said.
Asked about health experts revealing that certain neurotoxins have been found in the samples of some of the deceased, the minister said they will arrive at a conclusion only after an inquiry is completed.
Masood said they were waiting for some test reports, including the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) report, which took time, but it is clear that the deaths were not caused by any disease or virus.
No need to panic
The Health Minister said that the entire team of the health department visited the affected village and checked more than three thousand people door-to-door. She added that the teams collected samples of all kinds like water samples, food samples, and other samples, and sent the same for tests.
The Minister further added that the deaths were among the three families in total living at a distance of one and a half kilometers from each other. She highlighted that during these 40 days, the health department kept all facilities available in the affected area like ambulances, medicines, and other essential drugs to meet any exigency.
She appealed to the public to remain calm and extend full support to the district administration during the investigation being carried out to ascertain the actual cause of death.