Sir,
This has reference to the news item’Cursed ‘Paralkot village in Poonch has 80 percent people deaf and dumb’ (DE, Nov29, 2018).It is astonishing to read that about 80 percent people in the village Paralkot located near line of control in Mandi Sub Division in Poonch District of our state , has at least 80 percent population deaf and dumb.Still more astonishing is the fact that most of the people residing in the said village, inhabited by about 300 souls and located amidst the scenic beauty with many springs and thick forests,attribute this curse to evil spirits and fairies.It is equally surprising that the government did no serious effort to probe the cause into this curse.Some of the villagers tried many methods such as stopping drinking the water of the bowli the water of which was believed to cause deafness and dumbness in people, stopping marrying the children within the close relatives in the same village to stop this ailment etc have not helped much and people continue to suffer from this ailment.The fact that some of the villagers took their children to Poonch, Jammu and Srinagar hospitals and even in Delhi but yielded little results and the doctors failed to reach any conclusion, demands that the state government ought to send a special team of doctors to this ‘cursed’village to find out the scientific reason behind this curse or ailment.Moreover, there is need to open a special school for the deaf and dumb children of this village and employ specially trained teachers to teach such students so that they donot lag behind the normal children in study and thus,live a successful life.The Central government too ought to take cognizance of this fact, realise the gravity of the situation and constitute special medical teams to conduct a probe to find out the cause behind this ‘curse’ or ailment in the said village.
Ashok Sharma,
Housing Colony, Udhampur.
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