“There are two to three persons dying every day at the colony. I do not suspect this is something that sounds fishy,” said police commissioner Shankar M Bidari.
Twelve inmates, three of them women, of Beggars’ Colony at Sumanahalli on Magadi Road died under mysterious circumstances creating panic among the 2,500-odd inmates living in eight dormitories of the colony.
The deaths occurred between dinner time on Tuesday and lunch time on Wednesday. Despite 12 deaths (all within the age group of 45-70 except one 30-year-old) within a span of 14 hours, the authorities—including social welfare minister D Sudhakar—seem unperturbed. Sudhakar has played down the deaths as natural.
“There are two to three persons dying every day at the colony. I do not suspect this is something that sounds fishy,” said police commissioner Shankar M Bidari.
Doctors are treating 29 others from the colony for the same symptoms as experienced by the 12 dead. They suspect it to be a case of food poisoning or gastroenteritis.
The exact cause might be difficult to ascertain because all the dead were cremated without informing the police or civic officials.
“There was no post mortem done,” a police official said. Fourteen people are being treated at the Isolation Hospital on Old Madras Road, while 15 suffering milder symptoms are being looked after at the health centre within the colony. While 11 of them died on Tuesday night, one died on Wednesday afternoon. Most of the dead complained of vomiting and diarrhoea.
“Going by the conditions within the colony, it appears that the deaths were due to negligence on part of the authorities,” said medical officer of Beggars’ Colony G Harimurthy. “They died like flies one after the other. They ate bisibelebath (a mixed vegetable rice dish) on August 15. That could have been the cause,” said one of the inmates. The colony’s kitchens and the dining halls stink.
Social welfare commissioner M Manjunath Prasad will probe and submit a report by Saturday.
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