Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday demanded a probe by a sitting Supreme Court or High Court judge into deaths of children at Gorakhpur Medical College.
Blood tests conducted on 1,800 children admitted in the hospital between January and October last year showed that they were suffering from encephalitis, but the government admitted only 500 such cases by "tweaking the records", he told reporters.
He alleged that acting at the behest of the government, the doctors there described illness of the children as acute fever and claimed that around 1,500 children had died there between January and October last year.
Mr Yadav demanded that a team of doctors headed by a sitting Supreme Court of High Court judge be set up to probe the deaths.
The former chief minister said that when his father Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power, the then SP government used to pay compensation to the next of kin of the victim.
The SP government doubled the amount when the party returned to power in 2012, but the present government has stopped it, he added.
In UP, Rahul Gandhi's Selfie With Akhilesh Yadav During Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra "Congress Very Cunning Party": Akhilesh Yadav's Swipe On Caste Census Massive Fire In Medical College In UP, 58 Patients Evacuated 150 mg Semen In Kolkata Doctor's Body, Suspect Gang-Rape: Parents To Court Vandalism At Kolkata Hospital Where Doctor Was Raped, Tear Gas Fired 2 French Rafale Jets Collide Mid-Air, Instructor, Pilot Missing "Secular Civil Code Need Of Times": PM Modi In Independence Day Speech Taylor Swift To Return To Stage For Eras Tour After Vienna Attack Plot "140 Crore Indians Worried About Safety Of Hindus In Bangladesh": PM Modi Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.