Latehar (Jharkhand): A five-year-old child allegedly starved to death on Saturday night at Hisatu village of Manika block in Jharkhand's Latehar district due to lack of food during the current lockdown.
However, the administration was quick to rubbish the charges of death due to hunger, saying that the child died of illness.
The deceased child has been identified as Nimmi, daughter of Juglal Bhuyan of the same village.
According to sources, after the third phase of the lockdown was imposed, the child's father could not find any work as a result of which there was no ration at home and had not cooked for the past two days.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Nimmi’s mother Maanti said, “Ever since the curfew started, no food was cooked at home. Nimmi had become very weak as a result of starvation as he was already sick."
"With the imposition of the curfew, we stopped getting the ration from the government. There was no work and the shopkeepers also stopped lending us anything. We did not have any food cooked at our home. We would have surely cooked something if we had any ration," she said.
Juglal has seven more children. He earns a day’s meal after working long hours as daily wage labourers in fields or in brick kilns. But there too, wages were not paid to him for many days. When he got the news of the death of the child, he managed to return home somehow, sources said.
On being informed about the incident, an Economist Prof Jyandrej reached the village and investigated the matter.
Prof Jyandrej said, "After seeing the condition of the woman's house and questioning the villagers nearby, it is clear that the girl has died of hunger. The cause of death could be ascertained to be malnutrition and hunger as there was no ration at home and they had not cooked for the past two days. The central and state governments are only giving out the blank speeches and it is very sad to say that our country is still suffering from the food problem."
After getting information, Manika Block Development Officer NK Ram reached the village and gave ration and some cash money to the kin of the deceased girl.
On the other hand, refuting to the allegation, Sagar Kumar, SDM, Latehar said," The girl died not due to hunger but due to illness. It was found from the investigation that the girl had gone to take bath with her siblings in a pond yesterday. After that, her health condition deteriorated. Which has led to her death?
Meanwhile, Nimmi's death stirred controversy as the right to food activists claimed that this was another incident of death due to hunger in Jharkhand.
