"Quick action will be taken against the ones responsible for this, as it is a very serious issue", Siddharth Nath said after meeting Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath here. Later, the chief of the hospital was suspended by the Yogi goverment. "Yes, 60 patients have died at the hospital in the last five days but we don't think it's linked to reports of oxygen shortage", said Anil Kumar, Gorakhpur's divisional commissioner. 30 kids' had demised in the first 48 hrs.

He also alleged that the hospital authorities tried to hide the seriousness of the incident. "The kin of the dead were handed over the bodies and chased away".

Expressing his sympathies to the bereaved families, Adityanath said that encephalitis was a big challenge for the state government as well as an emotional issue for him as he have been waging a war against it since 1998.

Prashant Trivedi, the state's top health official, admitted there has been a problem in the pipeline which supplied oxygen. "Let the state submit its report, until then we should not jump to conclusions", said Mishra.

The Chief Minister also said, "We have constituted a committee to be lead by chief secretary to enquire the role of oxygen supplier in the incident".

An Indian child patient receives medical treament for Japanese Encephalitis at Gaya Medical College in Gaya on September 14, 2015. He had even inaugurated a ten bed ICU, a six bed Critical Care Unit.

Health activists said successive governments had ignored the threat posed by encephalitis as it was a disease that affected poor, malnourished children.

Rajeev Rautela the district magistrate, Uttar Pradesh said in the press conference that this event occurred Thursday noon. Officials later said the deaths took place due to blood poisoning which developed into hemorrhagic shock. Sources on the phone said that the hospital generally uses the pipeline supply of liquid medical oxygen but keeps a backup of 50 jumbo cylinders but the day when the oxygen supply was cut off, all the 50 cylinders were empty. He also ruled out the oxygen shortage being responsible. Will wait for report, action will be taken.

The hospital, which has become a major centre for children with encephalitis, has treated almost 370 cases in the last two months. However, doctors claimed that he had already resigned after the incident.

Former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav blamed the state government for the deaths and demanded compensation for the kin of the children.