Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday visited Rajouri's Badhal village to assess the situation arising due to mysterious deaths and meet the affected families.
After his visit, Abdullah told the media that various government departments have been working to understand the cause behind such incidents since the day they got the information.
Ruling out the possibility of viruses and bacteria causing the deaths, the J&K CM said, "Tests were done, and we reached the conclusion that there were no bacteria or viruses that caused those deaths."
The Chief Minister stated that it has been found that all the deaths happened in three families.
As the reasons behind the 17 deaths remain uncertain, Abdullah stated, "Since it's not a disease, police are also involved in it and they have formed a team to investigate the matter. The Central government team is also there - and we together will look into the incidents to find the reason behind all these deaths."
Earlier, some news reports suggested that some unidentified illness had caused 17 deaths in the remote village of Badhal.
According to reports, the first death was reported on December 7 last year. Among the victims, Mohammad Aslam's family has suffered the worst loss, with eight members, including his parents and six children, succumbing to the illness.
An 11-member Inter-Ministerial team has been deployed by the Home Ministry to investigate the deaths.
Parallelly, J&K Police has formed an SIT to probe potential criminal angles.
