Mysterious deaths: Central team visits J&K village

Rajouri/Jammu: A high-level inter-ministerial team on Monday visited Badhaal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district to ascertain the cause of death of 17 members of three families under mysterious circumstances, officials said.

The Central team headed by a director-rank officer in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs reached Rajouri district headquarters on Sunday evening and received a briefing from senior district, health and police officers. Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered the constitution of the inter-ministerial team to ascertain the causes of deaths in the three families linked to each other in a remote village, about 55 km from Rajouri town, between December 7 and January 19.

The officials said the team, accompanied by dozens of senior officers of various departments, reached Badhaal around 11.30 am and visited the bereaved families even as grave diggers were preparing the last resting place of Yasmeen Kousar (15), the sixth child of Mohd Aslam who breathed her last at the SMGS hospital in Jammu on Sunday evening.

The Central team divided itself in two groups immediately after reaching the village and are undertaking their investigation, they said. Nine members of two families had died in the village between December 7 and 12. The patients complained of fever, pain, nausea, intense sweating and loss of consciousness before dying within days of their admission to hospitals.