New Delhi: Despite three years having passed since the tragic incident, the Jammu and Kashmir police is yet to file a chargesheet after 12 children died from consuming cough syrup in Udhampur. A special investigation team had been formed in March 2020 to look into the case.According to The Tribune, the police claim the delay has been caused by the fact that not all the children’s death certificates have been issued.Twelve children aged between 11 months and four years had died between December 2019 and January 2020, all after consuming Coldbest-PC cough syrup, manufactured by the Kala Amb-based Digital Vision.“I have deployed some police officials specifically to know why the death certificates were not issued to some families whose children had died. I cannot say with certainty when the chargesheet will be filed, but I can promise that it will be done in the coming weeks,” SSP Udhampur Vinod Kumar told The Tribune.This is not the first time Kumar has made such a promise. In early October, he had been quoted by the Hindustan Times as saying that a chargesheet would be filed “within 10 to 15 days”.In February 2020, a clinical probe into the cough syrup had found that it contains diethylene glycol, a “poisonous compound”. Close to 5,500 units of the drug were then recalled from eight states, and the Himachal Pradesh health safety and regulation authorities suspended all production at Digital Vision’s unit at Kala Amb in Sirmaur district, where the Coldbest-PC syrup was manufactured.The National Human Rights Commission found the government’s Drugs Department to have been negligent and had told the Jammu and Kashmir administration to pay Rs 3 lakh compensation to the families of each child. “It observed that the department had failed to keep a regular vigil on the contamination and contents of the medicine sold within its jurisdiction and hence the state is vicariously liable for the negligence and for the payment of the monetary relief of ₹ 3 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased children,” the NHRC had said.The administration challenged this decision in the high court and then the Supreme Court, both of which dismissed the government’s plea.“Your [J&K administration’s] officers are found to be negligent. They ought to have been vigilant. Don’t compel us to say things about food and industry department. The health of citizens is in their hands. They don’t perform duties at all. They can’t play with the lives of citizens. It is their duty to check and verify things,” the Supreme Court bench observed earlier this month.In April this year, the J&K administration claimed to have paid the compensation.This is not the only incident in which children have died due to contaminated Indian-manufactured cough syrup. Earlier this year, 14 children died in Himachal Pradesh due to the same contaminants – diethylene glycol. That cough syrup was made by another Indian company.The issue gained international attention when an Indian-made cough syrup was linked to the deaths of 66 children in Gambia, and the World Health Organisation announced on October 5, 2022 that cough syrups made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited had diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.
