The Madhya Pradesh government on Tuesday told the High Court that bacterial contamination of drinking water led to widespread infection in Indore's Bhagirathpura area, where several people have died of diarrhoea and vomiting since December-end.
Appearing via video link, Chief Secretary Anurag Jain told an Indore HC bench of Justices Vijay Kumar Shukla and Alok Awasthi that contaminated water was found in 51 tube wells in Bhagirathpura and a test report revealed the presence of E. coli bacteria.
During the hearing on petitions, the court asked how the water supplied to residents of the locality, the epicentre of a diarrhoea and vomiting outbreak in India's cleanest city, got so contaminated and led to such a big tragedy.
The HC on Tuesday reserved its order on the petitioners' plea for a judicial inquiry into the deaths of several people due to vomiting and diarrhoea caused by drinking contaminated water and for an FIR to be filed against those responsible for the tragedy. It scheduled the next hearing for January 28.
The bench is hearing simultaneously two public interest litigations (PILs) filed regarding the deaths of people after drinking contaminated water in Bhagirathpura.
The government informed the HC that it has constituted a committee headed by Sanjay Kumar Shukla, Additional Chief Secretary, General Administration Department, to conduct a detailed review of the incident involving contaminated water supply and submit its findings, suggestions, and recommendations.
The petitioners' lawyer, Ajay Bagaria, expressed strong distrust of the committee, stating before the division bench that it was formed to conceal the truth of the drinking water disaster.
Bagadia urged the court to establish a committee headed by a retired High Court judge and conduct a judicial inquiry into the tragedy.
He also urged the HC to order the registration of an FIR against the officials and other individuals responsible for the deaths due to contaminated drinking water.
Chief Secretary Jain appeared before the HC via video conferencing and stated that all the court's instructions in the Bhagirathpura case were being followed.
Jain informed the court that contaminated water was found in 51 tube wells in Bhagirathpura and that a test report revealed the presence of E. coli bacteria.
The Chief Secretary stated that E coli was the cause of the widespread infection in the area.
According to health experts, E coli is commonly found in water through sewage or faeces, and drinking water infected by this bacteria causes vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach pain, and fever.
During the hearing, the HC sought to know how the drinking water in Bhagirathpura got contaminated and led to such a major accident.
On this, a government lawyer replied that due to leakage in a pipeline in the area, the drinking water got contaminated due to mixing of sewer water in it. The source of this contamination also includes the sewer of a public toilet.
The government lawyer told the court that the administration's survey in Bhagirathapura is continuing and drinking water samples are being tested.
The HC reserved its order after hearing arguments from all parties and scheduled the next hearing for January 28.
Amidst conflicting claims regarding the toll, the government, in a status report submitted to the Madhya Pradesh High Court on January 15, mentioned the deaths of seven people, including a five-month-old boy, during the vomiting and diarrhoea outbreak in Bhagirathpura.
Local residents have claimed 24 deaths so far in the outbreak.
A 'death audit' report prepared by a committee from the city's government-run Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College indicated that the deaths of 15 people in Bhagirathpura may be linked to the outbreak in some way.
The local administration has provided compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of 21 people.
Officials claimed that some of these people died from other illnesses and causes, but financial assistance is being provided to the families of all the victims on humanitarian grounds.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
