Badhal Deaths: 3 sisters airlifted to Chandigarh. Many families shifted to observation centers in Rajouri.

GNS ONLINE NEWS PORTAL 

SHYAM SOOD

**Govt order to shift victim’s families, relatives, neighbours & close contacts to Rajouri.

**Rajouri residents expressed resentment over the alleged quarantine center.

**These are not quarantine/isolation centers but are observation centers: Principal GMC.

“We are fighting against “invisible enemy”: Principal GMC.

RAJOURI JAN 22:-Terror has gripped Badhal village and Rajouri town after the J&K government decided to segregate families of those who died due to unidentified illness in Badhal, their close contacts, relatives, neighbours to the Observation Centers at Nursing College & GMC in Rajouri.
Meanwhile four more women, including three sisters, were brought to GMC with symptoms of fever, breathlessness etc and all the three sisters were airlifted to PGI Chandigarh for treatment and further management.
They have been identified as Tazeem Akhter (23 w/o Mushataq Ahmed, Nazia Kousar (16), Khalida Begam ( 18) all daughters of Bag Hussain ( Jija of late Fazal Hussain), and Shabnam Akhter (15) d/o Mohd Jameel r/o Punga-Badhal.
At present 5 children are under treatment in GMC Rajouri.
Inhabitants of Rajouri fears that by bringing these people to Rajouri town, they may also suffer due to this unidentified disease and have appealed to the Deputy Commissioner to shift them to other government buildings in the outskirts of Rajouri town.
Principal Government Medical College, A.S Bhatia informed there is no reason to panic.
“Leading laboratories of the country after examination of samples have declared that there is no pandemic, bacterial/virus infections behind these deaths in Badhal village,”.
The government has decided to segregate these people from the local environment to safer places for their safety.
“The centers created in GMC and Nursing College are neither quarantine or isolation centers. But these are observation centers” he added.
He added four women, including three sisters, brought to GMC from Badhal were not brought as patients but they were detected with mild symptoms by the health teams during screening.
“Health teams under the supervision of CMO Rajouri, Dr ML Rana 24X7 working for the safety and health of the people despite many odds,” said Principal GMC.
“We all are fighting against an ‘Invisible Enemy’. Despite involvement of scientists, personnel from leading laboratories from across the country, topmost experts of b health and other departments, we are not clear about the reason behind deaths” said AS Bhatia.
He claimed that we are sure that soon we will find the reason behind these deaths because leading experts/scientists of the country from various departments had visited Badhal as a part of the Inter-Ministerial experts team.
It is pertinent to mention here that on Wednesday Divisional Commissioner Ramesh Kumar and ADGP, Anand Jain visited Badhal to assess the situation.
They decided to segregate inhabitants of Badhal to safer places for better observation and for their safety and to know the exact reason behind 17 deaths in the village.
Deputy Commissioner Rajouri has activated all the concerned departments to provide every facility, including meals, beds, mattresses, medicines, mobile toilets, wash rooms, drinking water etc at Nursing College to residents of Badhal.
It is expected that about 200 persons will be shifted from Badhal to Rajouri. More than 54 persons including family members/ close relatives of the victims have already been brought and kept in two wards of GMC hospital.
The members include families of late Fazal Hussain ( Fazal & 4 children died), Mohd Aslam ( 6 children and maternal uncle/aunt died), Mohd Rafiq ( three children & wife died), & Aijaz Ahmed (airlifted to Chandigarh) .