Uma Kori, 31, began vomiting at about 3 am. Her husband Bihari had bought jalebi on the way home the evening before, and the couple had shared it with a brother and a neighbour. By morning she was extremely weak. A nearby doctor told the family to take her to hospital at once, but they had no vehicle. Around 11 am, with Uma unconscious, Bihari’s brother Babu drove a motorcycle while Bihari held her upright between them for nearly 7 km. Doctors at Arvindo Hospital declared her dead on arrival.
Her death is one of many in Bhagirathpura, a crowded, lower-income neighbourhood of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Local reporting counted 14 deaths by Wednesday, though the district administration had officially linked only four to the water at that point. The Guardian quoted Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava as saying he had information on 10 deaths, and noted that local media put the toll at 15 without official confirmation. More than 270 people went to hospital and at least 32 are in intensive care. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said door-to-door health teams found 2,456 “suspected patients” and treated them with first aid “on the spot”.
What officials say went wrong
Authorities say a public toilet built above a drinking water pipeline appears to have let sewage seep into the supply. It had no septic tank. Bhargava said sewage was mixing “in the main line leading from the water tank”. A medical official said tests “confirmed the presence of abnormal bacteria generally found in sewer water comprising human waste”.
Residents had been warning about foul-smelling tap water for months, the Guardian reported, and said their complaints disappeared into red tape. Families of the dead described water that smelled of drainage and seemed heavy with chlorine. “No one told us the water was contaminated. We filtered it. The same water was flowing throughout the neighbourhood. There was no warning,” said Sunil Sahu, whose five-month-old son died after being bottle-fed with tap water.
Others followed the same pattern. Manjula Wadhe, 74, started vomiting around midnight and was dead by morning. Seema Prajapat, 50, fell ill at about 4 am on Monday and died on the way to hospital. Urmila Yadav, 70, spent a day in intensive care before she died on Sunday; the administration confirmed two days later that the water was to blame.
Suspensions and an inquiry
Yadav ordered strict action. Zonal Officer Shaligram Shitole was suspended, the services of in-charge Assistant Engineer Yogesh Joshi were terminated, and in-charge Deputy Engineer Shubham Srivastava was removed. A three-member committee led by IAS officer Navjeevan Panwar will investigate, and the government announced ₹2 lakh for the family of each person who died. The Indore Municipal Corporation opened a control room for complaints about the Narmada water supply.
“Prima facie, this case falls under gross dereliction of duty,” said municipal councillor Kamal Waghela. Yadav promised that “No stone will be left unturned to make sure it does not happen again,” and said new rules would be framed. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused the state’s BJP-led government of negligence.
An editorial in the Hindu called for tighter enforcement of water guidelines and described the outbreak as “a wake-up call for India’s water management”. The Times of India reported that only 8% of the Delhi government’s public water-testing laboratories hold accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. Nationwide the share is 59%.
Sources
- 14 deaths due to contaminated water reported in Indore’s Bhagirathpura: Man rushes wife to hospital after sudden illness; doctors declare her dead – Madhya Pradesh News
- Sewage in drinking water blamed for at least 10 deaths in India’s ‘cleanest city’
- 2025 Indore drinking water contamination
