Dipke visits families in M.P.’s Balaghat, puts lens on tribal children’s deaths

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Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday visited the tribal villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district, where several children of the Baiga tribe died due to monsoon-related illnesses and lack of access to healthcare facilities, and met the families of the victims.

Mr. Dipke, who visited several villages, said the children could have been saved had they received timely treatment. The CJP blamed the government’s negligence for the deaths.

In a post on X, Mr. Dipke said, “I am still in Balaghat, meeting the families of the KIDS who have died. What I am hearing from locals is deeply disturbing. They say the actual number of deaths is much higher than what is being officially reported (36). 86 children have been hospitalised recently after the tribals’ protest.”

“I have also been told that children are being cremated without conducting post-mortems, and in some cases, even in the absence of parents. Sub Divisional Magistrate is the one who is behind all this. These children could’ve been saved had they received treatment on time,” he added.

Earlier, speaking to reporters, he said he had come to Balaghat to fix accountability in the matter. “We completely sympathise with families who have lost their children and will definitely come forward to ensure justice for them. We have come only to fix responsibility and accountability,” he said before meeting the families.

More than 30 children have died in several villages of Balaghat’s Birsa block over the past two and a half months due to a number of infectious diseases such as measles, malaria, respiratory illness, malnutrition, anaemia, and dehydration.

Balaghat Collector Kumar Satyam told The Hindu that even though Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had sanctioned financial assistance to the families of these children, the deaths cannot be attributed to any single disease.

He said more than 450 children received treatment at government hospitals in the last few months, and that health screenings have been conducted across 40 villages of Birsa block.

“It’s not just children who have been impacted by these seasonal diseases. Adults have fallen ill too. But because the children in the region have poor immunity, they have been affected the worst,” Mr. Satyam said, adding that the administration’s outreach has been able to gain the trust of locals, who have long been cut off from modern medical infrastructure and relied on faith healing practices. “The situation is now improving and the frequency of cases is reducing. The challenging part was to convince them to accept modern medical treatment. But now that the children started recovering and returning to their homes, their parents are also responding much better,” he added.

Mr. Dipke slammed the BJP government and accused the Madhya Pradesh police of “detaining some tribal students” who were coordinating his visit.

“I’m on my way to Balaghat, M.P., where 30 tribal children have died. I’ve received information from one of the tribal activists that the M.P.