This is not an isolated case. Two other villages, Kheerva and Mangluna, in the district too had witnessed a series of deaths, mostly related to Covid, leaving the local administration puzzled. Kheerva hit the headlines with 27 deaths in the last 30 days, while its neighbouring village Mangluna recorded 16 deaths in 10 days, horrifying the village of expats.
Of the total deaths in Badi, three have died at the Sawli Covid care facility while the remaining 12 have died due to influenza-like symptoms.
Sawant Singh’s family from the village lost six of its members since May 2, including one who died in an accident. He lost his brother Anand Singh, nephews Chotu Singh and Jeetendra Singh, sister-in-law Saroj Kanwar, an aunt and cousin Rajendra Singh.
Singh said that of the six, three of them — Jeetendra, Rajendra and Anand — died while battling Covid at the Sawli care facility. “Chotu died in an accident in Jaipur while the remaining two had Covid symptoms,” Singh said, alleging that his request to local authorities to conduct RT-PCR tests on remaining family members has fallen on deaf ears.
Despite a large number of deaths in a village with a population of 3,000, the district administration has not yet woken up to the crisis, sources said. The routine random sampling has not been done in the village. Panna Lal, a villager, said that, at present, several villagers were down with Covid. But since they had no faith in the system, they have opted for home remedies.
“I will visit Roru Badi on Tuesday for an inspection and to assess the situation,” said Ajay Choudhary, chief medical and health office (CMHO), Sikar, who ruled out community spread in the area. “Our teams have done extensive survey and sampling in the two villages of Kheerva and Mangluna. But it turned out that only five and three deaths, respectively, in these villages were due to Covid,” he said.
