Badhaal (Rajouri) mysterious deaths: CS holds high level meeting with health, civil and police officers

GNS ONLINE NEWS PORTAL 

SHYAM SOOD

*Coordination between Health & Police Deptts must to ascertain actual causes of deaths: CS

*No viral, bacterial or microbial infection behind deaths: Experts

**Certain neurotoxins found in deceased persons’ samples, need further investigation: Experts

RAJOURI JAN 14:-In the wake of increasing number of mysterious deaths in Badhaal village of Rajouri district (14 deaths till January 14) Chief Secretary (CS), Atal Dulloo, on Tuesday chaired a meeting of officers/officials of divisional/ district administration level and health experts from several prominent national health institutions to take stock of the measures taken so far to identify the real causes behind these mysterious deaths.
The meeting, besides Secretary Health & Medical Education Department was attended by ADGP, Jammu; Divisional Commissioner, Jammu; DIG, Rajouri-Poonch Range; DC, Rajouri; SP, Rajouri; Principal, GMC, Jammu; Principal, GMC, Rajouri; Director, Health Services, Jammu and Experts from PGIMER, CSIR, National Institute of Virology (NIV), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), DRDO and others.
Atal Dulloo impressed upon the health and police departments to assess the reports received from different institutes of repute to identify the real cause of these deaths & asked them to work in close coordination to take this investigation to its logical conclusion.
“Utilize the best resources to study these reports along with using other scientific measures to reach the conclusion” CS asked the police department.
He urged the health department to study these reports to find the reasonable leads causing these deaths.
“Reports furnished by different institutions are now available with us and more are going to be received soon. These reports should be enough to conclude the investigations and reach possible reasons for these deaths reported from this village,” said CS.
Dulloo listened to experts from PGIMER (Chandigarh), NIV, CSIR and NCDC about their findings after studying numerous samples taken from the affected persons or area.
He also sought suggestions from them about the future course of action to be taken from here.
Experts explained that after carrying out extensive microbiological studies no viral, bacterial or microbial infection was found to cause these deaths.
These were found to be localised and possibly having some epidemiological linkage.
It was also given out that certain neurotoxins were found in the samples of the deceased persons which is further investigated to know more about it.
It is pertinent to mention here that from 7th of December, 2024 about 13 deaths were reported in three different incidents from Badhaal village & the causes of which were unknown.
The government has taken several measures including rushing of Rapid Response Teams, carrying out investigations of samples from humans and animals, testing of water etc besides taking assistance of reputed health institutions of the country to know about the actual causes behind these deaths.