In a tragic incident, at least 17 persons, including women and children, died in different villages in eastern Assam districts of Golaghat, Jorhat and Sivasagar during the last four days after they consumed wild poisonous mushrooms.
The state government has promptly warned about the danger consuming unidentified verities of mushrooms that grow in the wild.
Out of those killed, 10 were from Golaghat district , five from Sivasagar and two others from Jorhat. Seven of the victims were children. Twenty more affected persons were undergoing treatment in different government hospitals in those district even as authorities did not rule out possibility of more deaths.
A state health department source informed that three families from Khumtai area in Golaghat district fell sick on April 1 after they consumed mushroom collected from the wild. An investigation carried out by the department revealed that those families had bought mushroom from a woman who had collected the same from the wild.
Meanwhile, the Assam government has issued instruction to district authorities across the state to alert the people especially in rural areas against consuming mushroom collected from unknown and wild sources.
The state agriculture department has asked Assam Agricultural University (AAU) at Jorhat to send a team of scientists to the affected villages in the three districts to collect samples of the mushroom consumed by the people and carry out a study to ascertain the nature of poison that claimed so many lives.