Thirty CRPF jawans hospitalised

The jawans had been taken to the wild terrain in neighbouring districts of Mirzapur and Rewa from the CRPF Group Centre at Phaphamau on the outskirts of the city a couple of days ago and a number of them complained of vomiting and diarrhoea yesterday, the sources said.

The recruits were rushed back to the Group Centre where the doctors referred them to a prominent private hospital of the city last night for treatment, the sources said.

Hospital sources said that besides vomiting and diarrhoea, many of the hospitalised jawans also showed "jaundice-like symptoms" and their blood samples have been sent for pathological tests on the basis of which further course of treatment will be decided.

Meanwhile, a blame-game is on between the recruits and the officers entrusted with supervising their training.

Some of the jawans have alleged that they had been drinking "contaminated water" even while at the Group Centre as the drainage system there was dysfunctional.

However, officers speaking on condition of anonymity debunk the allegation and claim that during the training in the inhospitable terrain, which is intended to toughen up the jawans, the recruits were supposed to consume only the limited quantity of water provided to them but some of them got bogged down by the intense heat and had sips of water from the ponds nearby which may have caused their illness.