The incident took place at Madrasi Colony, the jute mill settlement of Kamarhati. The 10 ailing children, all aged between one and three years, have been admitted in the Kamarhati State General Hospital and Sagar Dutta Memorial Hospital.

Two among the deceased children, one-year-olds Sana Parvin and Mohammad Mukhtar Ahmed, were taken ill on Monday night after drinking the contaminated water, pumped out of the tubewell and stored at their homes in Kamarhati Jute Mill’s old-line quarters. Muhammad Raja (12), who stays in neighbouring Anwar Bagan, had come to Madrasi Colony yesterday to visit his uncle. He too fell ill after drinking this water.

All three suffered from symptoms of diarrhoea. Sana was taken to a local doctor on Monday night. “Initially, she showed signs of improvement but her condition gradually deteriorated. I went out to get a rickshaw. When I returned, my daughter was dead,” said the child’s father Harun Rashid. Ahmed became ill on Tuesday morning and died on his way to the State General Hospital.

The tubewells here were installed by jute mill authorities six months ago to allay the prevalent water crisis. They replaced the existing community taps. Mill officials put these tubewells on the water supply pipeline. However, the quality of water was far from satisfactory. Residents complained to the mill authorities and the Kamarhati Municipality about this. A resident of the colony Rakia Khatoon said, “Yesterday, when we pumped out the water, we noticed it was unclear and also had insects floating in it. I decided to get water from a nearby deep tubewell.”

Residents said the pipeline supplying the water had not been renovated ever since it was constructed 60 years ago. The inner lining of the pipe has rusted, they said. The 80-year-old jute mill colony has 15 tubewells for its 500 families.

Chairman of the Kamarhati Municipality Gobindo Ganguly said, “The deaths are painful. The water has been contaminated somehow. We have sent two tankers of drinking water to residents of Ward 5, which includes the jute mill’s old-line quarters. We have also alerted locals not to drink water from tubewells.” He added that officers are collecting water samples that will be tested.