No redemption

The child is one of the victims from the Nashipur panchayat area of Murshidabad, 265 kms away from Kolkata, who died of a mysterious disease within 10 days. And the number’s rising. While official figures put the toll at 25, unofficial sources put the number at more than 50.

Experts from various medical research institutes of the country — National Institute of Communicable Disease, Delhi, National Institute of Virology, Pune, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Delhi — have visited the area to ascertain the cause of the disease.

‘‘It may also be heat and malnutrition,’’ Prabhakar Chatterjee, state director of health services, said.

While the findings of the investigations are yet to come out, what pains the villagers is that the political parties have woken up to the tragedy only now. The West Bengal Pradesh Congress has called for a 12-hour Murshidabad bandh on June 20 to protest against the failure of the district Health authorities to check the spate of deaths.

‘‘Minister for Health Surya Kanta Mishra has not bothered to visit the area even as the district Health authorities have failed to tackle the scourge,’’ WBPCC general secretary Manas Bhuina said.

Today, party district Congress Committee president and Murshidabad MP Adhir Ranjan Chaudhury travelled to the affected villages. The Congress is going to file a PIL on this issue, the party said.

The district Health authorities came in for criticism by the ruling CPI(M) too. ‘‘Our doctors and Health officials can not escape the blame for this,’’ Madhu Bag, secretary of the CPI(M) district committee, said.

Meanwhile, Qutubul’s father Humayun Kabir says: ‘‘Aamader Allah Bharsha (We depend on Allah)…When we fall ill we drink water blessed by the maulvi. And if that does not work, we go to Navi daktar (doctor).’’

With both doctors and medicines scarce, the villagers don’t have many options left. For taking a patient to the hospital, the only transport is horse-drawn carriages. ‘‘They charge Rs 200 if we want to hire them. Where does that kind of money come from,’’ asks Mustafa Shaikh, whose son Manirul was one of the victims.