2 months on, no conclusive report on Rajouri deaths

Despite an inter-ministerial team rushed by Union home minister Amit Shah on January 18 and experts from top health institutes making a beeline to Badhaal village of Rajouri besides a special investigation team of the police formed to ascertain the root-cause of 16 deaths, no conclusive report has come into public domain as yet

Since December 7 last year, 16 people including 13 children died due to an illness in the village. A woman died due to pregnancy-related complications, taking the toll to 17.

“It’s been over two months now since deaths started taking place from December 7 last year but final report has not been shared with us as yet,” said a senior health official, who declined to be named. He said, “We are awaiting a final written report from the Institute of Toxicology and Research, Lucknow. However, verbally they have informed us that chlorfenapyr, an insecticide, has been found in their investigations.”

Chlorfenapyr is a broad-spectrum insecticide derived from halogenated pyrroles and is highly toxic.

Another health official said, “Luckily, doctors were able to check further deaths with the antidote of atropine at government medical college in Rajouri but no conclusive report has been shared with us till date.”

Union home minister Amit Shah had on January 18 had ordered constitution of an inter-ministerial team that visited Badhaal village on the next day. On January 16, the police had formed a SIT to investigate the matter.

Similarly, some national labs of the country, like National Institute of Virology Pune, National Centre for Disease Control, New Delhi, National Institute of Toxicology and Research, Lucknow, Defence Research Development Establishment, Gwalior, Microbiology Department of PGIMER, Chandigarh, besides the ICMR-Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory, GMC Jammu visited the village to conduct their investigations.

All the investigations and samples empirically indicated that the incidents were not due to a communicable disease of bacterial or viral origin and that there was no public health angle.

Further studies found presence of toxins, like aldicarb and cadmium, in the samples of those afflicted by the mysterious disease. The incident came into notice on December 7, 2024, when a family of seven got ill after a community meal, resulting in five fatalities.

Meanwhile, 15 kin from three families of Fazal Din, Mohammad Aslam and Nizamuddin from Badhaal village have been discharged from GMC Rajouri after three weeks.

Rajouri GMC principal Dr AS Bhatia said, “These 15 people were related to the three inter-related families of Fazal Din, Mohammad Aslam and Nizamuddin.” Majority of 16 deaths took place among these families. “After three weeks of hospitalisation and their clinical examination, we have sent 15 people to their homes on Wednesday. We have also done their counselling and briefed them about dos and don’ts,” said Dr Bhatia.

He also informed that after a week, a team of doctors will be sent to the village to re-examine all the villagers. The mysterious deaths that happened in four families inter-related to each other had baffled the health experts.

However, no new illness case has been reported among the residents of health crisis-hit Badhaal in Rajouri district since January 24.