Admin bans community feasts in village hit by mysterious deaths

EVEN as the high-level inter-ministerial team visited remote Budhal village in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Monday to ascertain the cause of the 17 deaths in three families due to a mysterious illness, the administration sealed the spring in the affected village after water samples from it tested positive for a few pesticides and insecticides and also banned community feasts in the village.

- FAYAZ WANI @Srinagar

The central team led by a director-rank officer in MHA visited the Budhal village to take on-spot assessment of the situation. The team had arrived in Rajouri Sunday evening and were briefed by health, police, and civil officers about the mysterious deaths.

Seventeen persons, including 13 children and four adults of three families, have died of the mysterious illness in the last 50 days in the village. The three families, who are related to each other, are residing within 1.5 km from each other.