'Nobody dies of cold,' says UP babu on Muzaffarnagar riot victims

Despite the Uttar Pradesh government facing brickbats over the relief measures provided for people displaced by the Muzaffarnagar riots, a bureaucrat attempted to defend the death toll in relief camps bizarrely and said that no one could die of the cold. “Children have died of pneumonia, not of cold. Nobody can die of cold. If people died of cold, nobody would have been alive in Siberia,” UP Principal Secretary for Home, Anil Gupta, said. [caption id=“attachment_1309275” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] “Most of the children who lost their lives are the ones who had been taken outside the camps for treatment by their parents or were referred to government hospitals for treatment,” Gupta said. “The cause of the death of all these children is different with about four dying because of pneumonia while some others died because of dysentery and one due to premature birth,” he said. While Gupta did not react to the furore over his statement, Madhukar Jaitley, advisor to the Chief Minister, said that the government had taken all measures to address the requirements of those in the relief camps. “Even if 34 people have died in the camps, not all of them have died due to the cold… Several deaths were natural deaths, don’t count all deaths as taking place due to the cold,” Jaitley told CNN-IBN. He also defended Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh’s controversial statement where he claimed that the people in the relief camps were conspirators. “Mulayam Singh knows the ground reality and anyone who is going against the government should stop this and check the facts before saying anything,” he said. However, political opponents weren’t as charitable with Congress and BJP spokespersons alleging that the statement was in keeping with the Samajwadi Party government’s treatment of the riot victims. “The government should provide better facilities and medical care and should try to ensure that these victims should go back home, instead of accusing them of being conspirators and accusing political parties,” Congress’s Rita Bahuguna said.