At least 14 children under the age of five have died in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara district after consuming a cough syrup later found to be contaminated with diethylene glycol, a poisonous industrial chemical. The deaths, reported from early September, have sparked a major pharmaceutical safety investigation across multiple states.

The first fatality was reported on September 2, when four-year-old Shivam died from acute kidney failure. Over the following weeks, several more children, Vidhi (3), Adnan (5), Usaid (4), Rishika (5), and Shreya (2), also died under similar circumstances, according to an Indian Express report.

District officials initially investigated likely environmental causes, including contaminated water, rodent-borne diseases, and mosquito-borne infections, but all tes

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