Srinagar: Fourteen years after one of the darkest chapters in Kashmir’s public healthcare history triggered widespread public outrage, official records relating to the deaths of hundreds of infants at Srinagar’s premier children’s hospital have been declared unavailable, effectively erasing the primary documentary trail of a tragedy that once dominated national headlines.
Documents obtained under the Right to Information Act, a copy of which has been accessed by news agency Kashmir Dot Com, reveal that records pertaining to infant deaths at the then G.B. Pant Children Hospital during the crucial period from January to May 2012 no longer exist in the hospital’s archives.
The disclosure has revived uncomfortable questions about accountability, transparency, and the preservation of records connected to a major public health crisis that claimed hundreds of young lives.
The revelation emerged after an RTI application was filed in April 2026 by Jammu resident Danish Azam. The applicant sought the total number of infants and newborns who died at the hospital between January and May 2012 and requested a certified copy of the inquiry report prepared by noted physician Dr. Showkat Ali Zargar following the controversy.
The application was initially submitted to the Health and Medical Education Department before being transferred to Government Medical College Srinagar and subsequently forwarded to Government Children Hospital Bemina. The Bemina facility now functions as the principal pediatric institution in the Valley and is the successor to the former G.B. Pant Hospital.
In its formal response issued in June 2026, the Medical Records Department of the hospital stated that the records sought by the applicant are no longer available.
According to the department, the hospital was functioning from its old Sonwar premises during the period in question and the medical records were located on the ground floor of the building. During the devastating floods that struck Kashmir in September 2014, both the ground floor and first floor suffered extensive water damage, resulting in severe destruction of hospital records, including those relating to the period under question.
The department further disclosed that under an official order issued in October 2015, and subsequent approval granted by the competent authority, all old records exceeding ten years in age along with flood-damaged files were officially disposed of and destroyed in the presence of a designated committee. The response concluded that the relevant records for early 2012 are not available in the Medical Records Department.
The disclosure has reopened a painful chapter that many Kashmiris believed had faded into history. In 2012, reports of an extraordinary rise in infant and newborn deaths at G.B. Pant Hospital sparked widespread concern across Jammu and Kashmir.
The hospital, which served as the Valley’s only major referral centre for children at the time, came under intense scrutiny as reports emerged of overcrowded wards, inadequate sanitation, staff shortages, insufficient life-saving equipment, and a growing number of deaths among critically ill infants. As public anger mounted, grieving families accused authorities of failing to provide basic healthcare facilities while civil society groups, opposition parties, and medical experts demanded an independent investigation into the alarming mortality figures.
Official figures released during that period confirmed that hundreds of infants had died within the first few months of 2012 alone.
Contemporary reports documented severe pressure on the hospital’s infrastructure and highlighted an acute shortage of ventilators, which are machines used to help critically ill babies breathe. Medical personnel and independent observers pointed to overcrowding, poor management, and inadequate resources as major contributing factors.
Faced with growing public outrage, the government constituted a high-level inquiry under Dr. Showkat Ali Zargar, then Director of SKIMS. The inquiry’s findings, widely reported in the media at the time, revealed a deeply disturbing state of affairs. According to reports published at the time, the committee found that mortality levels in the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit were significantly higher than acceptable institutional standards.
The report reportedly identified serious administrative shortcomings, poor management practices, inadequate infrastructure, and operational failures that contributed to the crisis. Its findings prompted immediate administrative action, including the removal of the hospital’s then Medical Superintendent and recommendations for major reforms within the healthcare system.
Yet despite the significance of the inquiry, the RTI response obtained in 2026 contains no copy of the report sought by the applicant. No findings have been supplied, no recommendations have been furnished, and no action-taken report has been provided. Furthermore, no clarification has been offered regarding whether the report survives in government archives, the Health and Medical Education Department, Government Medical College Srinagar, the Civil Secretariat, or any other public institution.
The absence of the inquiry report raises a troubling question regarding how the public can independently verify the scale of the tragedy, examine the causes identified by investigators, or assess whether the promised reforms were ever fully implemented if the original mortality records have been destroyed and the definitive inquiry report remains unavailable.
While government procedures may permit the destruction of routine medical records after a specified retention period, experts note that documents connected to landmark public tragedies often carry historical, legal, and administrative significance far beyond ordinary hospital files. The disappearance of records connected to one of Kashmir’s most controversial healthcare episodes effectively closes off an important avenue for future scrutiny, academic research, and public accountability.
For many families who lost children during those months in 2012, the issue was never merely about statistics. It was about understanding why so many infants died and whether meaningful lessons were learned.
Fourteen years later, the records that could help answer those questions are gone, and the inquiry commissioned to establish accountability remains out of public view. The infants whose deaths shook Kashmir cannot speak for themselves, and now it appears much of the official paper trail documenting their deaths has disappeared as well. What remains are memories, unanswered questions, and a growing debate over whether one of Kashmir’s biggest healthcare tragedies has quietly slipped beyond the reach of history. (KDC)
