Contaminated tap water in Indian cities leaves families grieving

Sunil Sahu regrets that his five-month-old son drank some milk diluted with tap water.

Avyan was being breastfed, but his father said his family in the city of Indore in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh also fed him a diluted mixture.

In many Indian households, milk is considered too thick for babies and disrupts their digestion, causing caregivers to dilute the milk.

Realizing that tap water was unsafe to drink, the family said they boiled a mixture of milk and water and allowed it to cool before feeding Avyan.

The baby began to suffer from diarrhea on December 26. Despite treatment from local doctors, the child died within three days. Mr Sahu claimed the tap water killed his son.

Avyan was one of several people who died after allegedly drinking contaminated water in Indore’s Bhagirathpura community. The investigation is ongoing, but officials said a leaking pipe caused sewage to mix with drinking water, causing an outbreak of diarrhea in the area.

The exact death toll remains unclear. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said autopsy reports have so far confirmed that four deaths were related to contaminated drinking water.

But that number is likely to increase. While state minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said he had heard of eight deaths so far, local reporters told BBC Hindi the death toll was closer to 14.

More than 200 people have been admitted to the city’s hospitals.

The government said health authorities screened some 40,000 residents of Bhagirathpura over the past week and found about 2,450 cases of vomiting and diarrhea. Bhagirathpura is a community mainly made up of poor and lower-middle-income families.

The deaths in Indore – often ranked as India’s cleanest city – sparked an uproar and put the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the defensive.

District Magistrate Shivam Verma said the leak that caused the contamination has been resolved and officials are checking other leaks. One city official has been fired and two have been suspended.

Chief Minister Yadav told the media: “This kind of thing should never have happened in the first place. We have formed a committee to look into the matter and will leave no stone unturned to ensure that this does not happen again.”

The local municipal corporation is currently supplying water to Bhagirathpura through water tankers. Residents said they were told not to use tap water until further notice.

As government teams patrolled Bhagirathpura, many families were grieving.

Sanjay Yadav, a tailor, said his 69-year-old mother started vomiting on the evening of December 26.

“We rushed her to hospital but she died in less than 24 hours,” said Mr Yadav, whose 11-month-old son was also unwell.

His neighbor Sudha Pal’s 76-year-old father Nandalal Pal also died of severe diarrhea.

“Our tap water is still contaminated and smelly,” she said.

“The water smelled bad, but we never thought it could be fatal,” said Arun Prajapat, who claimed his mother Seema died after drinking contaminated water.

According to media reports, residents of Bhagirathpura had been complaining about the stench and contamination of the water for more than two months before the diarrhea outbreak.

When asked about the matter, BJP local councilor Kamal Waghela told news agency ANI on Thursday that Indore’s sewage and water pipelines require extensive repairs and work is progressing in most areas.

However, Jitu Patwari of the opposition Congress party accused the BJP government of poor governance and concealing the actual death toll.

“Indore has always given votes to the BJP but they have given poisonous water,” he told ANI.

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