Giridih, April 24: It is the talk of the town that women from Chatro village have been delivering “blind babies”.

Indeed, four of the five babies, delivered by women from the village during the past five months, are either completely or partially blind.

Concerned at the phenomenon, doctors here have called for a more detailed inquiry into the reasons, with people suspecting the high-level of pollution caused by sponge iron units to have triggered the deformity.

Doctors have noticed that the parents appear to be otherwise healthy and the older children born to them too were “normal”. They also observed that women delivering the “blind babies” are the ones who spent almost the entire period of their pregnancy in and around the area, with their in-laws. Those who went away after conception appear to have been spared the trauma.

Even passive smoking, points out Dr M.L. Sharma, is injurious to women during pregnancy. But here these unfortunate women virtually live under the huge smoke coming out of the sponge iron units mushrooming in the area, thus increasing the risk of troubled pregnancies and deformed children.

The alarming level of pollution in the area is indicated by the colour of leaves and grass which have turned from green to blackish. Trees have stopped bearing fruits and animals have been reported to be dying suddenly, possibly after drinking pools of polluted water. Sharma, who has been treating some of the blind children and their mothers, has alerted the district administration about the growing menace. Steps need to be taken urgently, he says, before it gets too late for the residents.

Eye specialist Dr Prabhat Kumar also believes that pollution was a major factor to have caused blindness in the newborn. Kumar, who has also examined some of the blind babies, ruled out any genetic or hereditary reasons behind the deformity, with some babies found to be blind in both eyes and others having vision in only one of the eyes.

Sponge iron factories were set up in the area for the first time around a decade ago in the Chatro area. Their number has now grown to around 15 in just the past 10 years.