Jammu, Jan 18: Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah Saturday ordered the constitution of an inter-ministerial team led by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to visit the affected village to ascertain the causes of deaths in 3 incidents in the past six weeks in Rajouri district.
As per a communique issued by the MHA, the team will consist of experts from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Ministry of Water Resources.
It will also be assisted by experts from animal husbandry, food safety and forensic science labs.
The team would proceed on January 19 and in collaboration with the local administration would also work on providing immediate relief as well as taking precautionary measures to prevent such incidents in future.
Experts from some of the most reputed institutions of the country have been arranged to manage the situation and understand the causative factors of deaths.
Announcement to constitute an inter-ministerial team by the Home Minister came two days after the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha spoke to the victims’ kin over phone and assured them that justice would be provided besides all kinds of assistance.
In this connection, a day ago, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah too convened a high-level meeting and directed the Health and Police departments to expedite their investigations in case of mysterious deaths, keeping in view the urgency of the situation.
Sharing his concern over unexplained nature of deaths, the Chief Minister reiterated the commitment of the government to identify the root cause at the earliest.
To achieve this objective, he instructed all concerned departments to collaborate with unflinching determination to resolve this disturbing issue.
“The unexplained nature of these deaths is deeply concerning and the government is committed to ensuring that the root cause is identified at the earliest. I urge all departments to collaborate and leave no stone unturned in resolving this issue,” CM Omar stated.
Prior to it, the health department teams had conducted door-to-door surveys of over 3,000 residents in the affected area, collecting and testing samples of water, food, and other materials.
However, all test results, including those for influenza and other possible contaminants, were negative.
Additional testing was carried out by premier national institutes, including ICMR, National Institute of Virology, National Centre for Disease Control, CSIR, DRDO, and PGIMER Chandigarh, but no definite cause for the deaths was identified.
Police investigations too were underway to determine the root cause of the fatalities, which were limited to three families residing within 1.5 kms of each other.
