Within a week, hundreds of pilgrims have fallen victim to diarrhoea, thanks to polluted drinking water and stale food provided by the illegal lodging houses here.
While 62 pilgrims including minor children and aged devotees were affected with diarrhoea by the day, earlier this week 140 pilgrims were affected with diarrhoea. On Wednesday, six pilgrims including a minor girl suffered from the disease and were being treated in the District Headquarters Hospital in critical condition. They fell ill after consuming fake Bislery mineral water bottles which were sold to them by the lodging house staff.
According to Sea beach police inspector Pravat Chandra Sahu, 90 pilgrims from Belghuria, Paikpada, Mahesh Tala and Thakurpur villages of West Bengal came on a pilgrimage and stayed in an unregistered lodging house ‘Haribhavan’ situated at Goudabada Sahi near the sea beach.
They were supplied drinking water by the hotel staff. After drinking they all started vomiting and suffered from loose motion. The lodging house owner, in a bid to suppress the incident, provided them with some tablets. Six of them including a minor child became serious. On information by the locals, the police rushed to the lodge and arranged shifting of seriously affected pilgrims to hospital and intimated the situation to the health officials.
The district health officials sent a medical team to the lodging house and affected were being treated there. A temporary health camp has been made operational to treat the patients there.
Director (public health) Kailash Chandra Mishra, ADMO (family welfare) KK Sarkar, ADMO (public health) P Mohanty, health officer of the Puri municipality B Mishra and ADMO (PH) AK Baitharu were camping at the lodging house supervising the treatment of the affected pilgrims.
This is the second such incident in a week where the innocent pilgrims became victims of greedy hotel owners. Earlier 140 pilgrims staying in Debirani Kuteer, an unregistered lodging house, got affected of diarrhoea and were hospitalized. A thorough investigation by experts revealed that pilgrims were provided stale food, polluted water. Besides, unhygienic condition of the lodge also led to the situation.
In both the cases, it has been found that the two lodges are not registered and pilgrim brokers along with the owners run them illegally without providing basic facilities. The police found that these lodging houses did not record the names and IDs of the boarders. Swati Dutt, a pilgrim, alleged that they were sold fake Bislery water bottles by the staff at a high price. The pilgrims being treated in the DHH were identified as Asmita Ray (28), Chhabi Ray (40), Dillip Ray (54), Parul Majhi (61), Kiran Mandol (7) and Kamal Mandol (67).
Sea Beach IIC Sahu said no complaints were lodged and police would take action if the administration files a complaint.