Cough-syrup deaths: Congress demands judicial probe, compensation for deceased's families

In the wake of reported deaths of children in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan allegedly due to the consumption of a cough syrup the Congress on Tuesday demanded a judicial probe into the matter strict action against those responsible and compensation for the families of the deceasedThe opposition party also accused the governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan of giving a clean chit to the companies that had manufactured the cough syrup that was allegedly responsible for the deaths of the children It also sought an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issueAt a joint press briefing here with Congress Legislature Party leader in the Rajasthan Assembly Tika Ram Jully the partys legislature party leader in Madhya Pradesh Umang Singhar claimed that 16 children have died in Chhindwara and that the local Congress MLA had warned the government several times but no action was takenWhen the matter escalated the body of a girl child was exhumed from the grave and a postmortem conducted Children kept dying in the state and the chief minister kept roaming in Assams Kaziranga National Park Singhar allegedThe deputy chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Rajendra Shukla says no death has occurred due to cough syrup and he kept giving a clean chit to the company that makes the cough syrup After all what kind of an insensitive government is this What is the link of the deputy chief minister with the medicine company he askedTests are conducted even for minor illnesses but no tests were ever conducted while childrens kidneys were failing in Madhya Pradesh the Congress leader saidThe pharmaceutical company chose a tribal area like Parasia It knew that Dalits tribals and poor people live there and their voices could be suppressed If such companies are doing business in small districts in collaboration with the government are ministers taking a share from these companies he askedSinghar alleged that both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have puppet chief ministersThese people cannot take decisions and decisions come directly from Delhi We want to know there are about 25000 children in Parasia so has the government launched any campaign to identify who all have been affected The BJP government is giving only Rs 4 lakh as compensation to the families of the deceased Is the price of a mothers empty lap just Rs 4 lakh he askedIs there any humanity left in the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh Singhar askedHe demanded a judicial inquiry into the cases of the childrens deaths and a government job for a member of each of the affected familiesThe families of the deceased children should receive compensation equal to the amount spent on their treatment There should be no politics in this Singhar saidJully said while the prime minister claims that he has been serving the country for 25 years in different positions all this is happening under his regime He should apologise to the country over this issue the Congress leader saidIn Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh several children have died after consuming a cough syrup and many children are seriously ill Despite this the BJP government in Rajasthan is not ready to accept that the childrens deaths were caused by consuming cough syrup Jully saidMy question to the Rajasthan government is what is the compulsion to procure drug supplies from those pharmaceutical companies that are blacklisted and notorious he saidSeveral states have ramped up actions to halt the consumption and supply of the Coldrif cough syrup following 14 deaths of children linked to the medicine in Madhya Pradesh where the government has suspended three officials and transferred the drug controllerThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever