Twelve children were shifted out of the ICU at a government hospital in Jodhpur, Rajasthan after a bottle of a disinfectant broke, letting off a pungent gas which triggered uneasiness among the kids, officials said.

An infant died admitted at the paediatric ICU at MDM hospital died around the time this happened, leading to allegations that the gas was the cause. Hospital Superintendent Mahendra Kumar Aseri, however, denied that the death was linked to the formalin leak. He said formalin leaked from the bottle after being dropped between 1.30 to 2 am and a pungent smelling gas was leaked when they tried to clean the spill with water.

"The gas caused uneasiness among the children in the ward," Aseri said. He said that as soon as the incident occurred, the 12 children were shifted to an adjacent ICU ward. Sources alleged that one child, aged about one year, died sometime after the leak was reported and he was discharged from the hospital at night to hush up the matter.

Aseri claimed that it was a normal death. "The child was brain dead and his condition was already serious. He had been given CPR twice," he said, adding that the body was handed over to his parents who left in the night itself. He said one other child had died earlier in the evening and his death was also normal. The superintendent said a committee had been constituted to to find out how the incident occurred.

"The bottle might have fallen accidently in the night but we have initiated an inquiry to know that how the bottle fell down and who dropped it," Aseri said. By July 31 evening, all the 12 children were shifted back after ensuring that there was no hazard in the ICU ward, he said.