Five days later (December 12), Mohammad Rafiq lost his wife and three children to the mysterious illness.On January 9, Aslam’s six children fell ill and five of them have died since. His maternal uncle and aunt who lived with him have also died in the last two days. All the three families are interlinked and reside within 1.5 kilometers of each other.Aslam said about 30-40 persons eat food in Fazal’s house on December 7 and “why only three families were affected.”“My three children had been at home and did not eat the food and despite that they were affected and fell victim. We don’t know what is happening. There should be proper medical and police investigation to unravel the truth,” said Aslam.The mysterious illness has caused scare in the village and villagers are very apprehensive about their health.Thousands of samples have been taken by different agencies from the village. “All samples have tested negative for any viral or bacteriological etiology. The tests were conducted on different samples in some of the most reputed labs of the country, ” an official spokesman said. He said clinical reports, lab investigations, and environmental samples indicate that the incidents are not due to a communicable disease.Aslam said if the government says there is no communicable disease, it should investigate the cause of the deaths. “The investigation should have started initially after the first deaths instead of waiting for 45 days and 16 deaths,” he said, referring to a police investigation launched by the government.Meanwhile, J&K CM Omar Abdullah today chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the situation in Budhal village.
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