Deaths are state-sponsored murders: Shrinate

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Wednesday claimed that water contamination in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh has killed 32 persons, and termed these fatalities as “state-sponsored murders” committed by the BJP government and the system.

Hitting out at the Mohan Yadav-led government, the Opposition party leader also demanded the sacking of State Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, registration of a murder case against city mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava and compensation of Rs 1 crore each to the families of all the deceased.

“The deaths of 32 people due to consumption of contaminated water in the city are in fact, state-sponsored murders committed by the government and the system. The Government will have to give an answer for this,” Shrinate said in a press conference at the Indore Press Club.

Bhagirathpura area in Indore, where an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea occurred in the last week of December 2025 due to contaminated water, falls under the Indore-1 assembly constituency represented by Minister Vijayvargiya.

Shrinate alleged that the BJP was so intoxicated with power that it had no concern for the suffering of people.

“Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, came to Indore from Delhi to understand the pain of the victims of the drinking water tragedy, but Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and local Lok Sabha MP Shankar Lalwani had no time to visit Bhagirathpura,” the social media and Digital Platforms chairperson of the Congress alleged.

The Centre had allocated Rs 67,000 crore for the Jal Jeevan Mission in the Union Budget 2025-26, but only Rs 17,000 crore were spent under it, while Rs 50,000 crore were “saved”, she said.

“Had the Government spent some more amount under this head, perhaps 32 people would not have died due to contaminated drinking water in Indore,” she said.

In the ‘death audit’ report submitted by the State Government in the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on January 27, it was stated that there was a possibility that the deaths of 16 people in Bhagirathpura could be linked to the outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea caused by contaminated drinking water in the area.

The court has constituted a one-member commission headed by former high court judge Justice Sushil Kumar Gupta to conduct a judicial probe into the contaminated drinking water case.

The State Government has provided financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of over 20 people who died during the outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea in Bhagirathpura.

Officials claimed that some of the deaths occurred due to other diseases and reasons, but financial assistance was being provided to the families of all the deceased on humanitarian grounds.