Civic body has not listed 950 deaths, alleges Fadnavis

Former chief minister and leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis in a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday alleged the Brihanmumbai Municipal

Former chief minister and leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis in a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday alleged the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had allegedly not registered as many as 950 deaths caused due to the pandemic as Covid-19 deaths.

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Until Sunday, the city had recorded 2,182 deaths due to Covid-19 with fatality rate of 3.7%. Covid-19 fatality rate has increased from 3.2% on June 1 to 3.7% on June 12.

Fadnavis, who released the letter to the media and also tweeted about it, said the death audit committee set up by BMC had declared 451 deaths caused by the disease as non-Covid ones.

The committee has been formed to scrutinise all such deaths before those are officially recorded as Covid-19 deaths.

“All these deaths were caused by coronavirus as per Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) norms. Under whose pressure did the audit committee not show these deaths as due to Covid-19? Will the state government take action against the committee? Now after this has come to light, the government has belatedly asked BMC to update the data,” read the letter.

Fadnavis claimed that of these 451 deaths, 356 deaths were declared non-Covid while the remaining were pending for scrutiny. He further alleged there are another 500-odd deaths that took place in private hospitals due to Covid-19 but were not referred to this committee at all. “Both of these instances are extremely serious in nature and criminal in intent,” said Fadnavis.

There was no official reaction from the BMC on Fadnavis’ allegations. A senior civic official said, “There could be a pendency of cases before the committee, but there is no pressure or any attempt being made to stifle Covid-19 death numbers.”