One by one, the infants and children slipped away on Thursday night, their parents watching helplessly as oxygen supplies at the government hospital ran dangerously low. 
 
 At least 30 children died on Thursday and into Friday at a hospital in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after its supply of liquid oxygen was disrupted over an unpaid bill, officials said. A home ministry spokesman told the Press Trust of India, citing police reports, that 21 of the deaths were directly linked to a shortage of oxygen. 
 
 Witnesses described a chaotic scene between 11pm and 2am as medical practitioners and relatives - the tanks running dry - handed out manual resuscitator bags to families in a desperate attempt to save the young patients. 
 
 "We saw children dying around us," said the father of one victim, who gave his name only as Vijay. "Obviously, it's the hospital's fault. So many children have died because of them. My son was fine until nighttime, then something wrong happened." 
 
 Two more children died Saturday at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College hospital in Gorakhpur, an impoverished area in the eastern part of the state, as authorities scrambled to firm up supplementary supplies and investigate the tragedy. The government suspended the medical college principal on Saturday. 
 
 The state's Health Minister and hospital officials have denied charges that the deaths were caused by the oxygen bill dispute. An estimated 60 children have died at the hospital since 7 August from a variety of causes, officials said. 
 
 In a news conference on Saturday, the state's Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, called the tragedy despicable and said the state had set up a committee to investigate the role of the oxygen vendor. 
 
 "The guilty will not be spared," Adityanath said. 
 
 Parents of the victims described feelings of anger and bewilderment over the incident, saying they were struggling with guilt over not being able to save their children. 
 
 "The idea is devastating - that she had to suffer while trying to breathe," said Manger Rajbhar, the father of a five-day-old girl who died in the chaos. 
 
 The deaths provoked widespread outrage and condemnation across the political spectrum and on social media, where a political cartoon spread that showed the babies as little angels hovering in the sky as an Indian government official tries to reach them. 
 
 "30 kids died in hospital without oxygen. This is not a tragedy. It's a massacre," Indian Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, a child advocate, said in a tweet. "Is this what 70 years of freedom means for our children?" (The country is set to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its independence from Britain on Tuesday.) 
 
 30 kids died in hospital without oxygen. This is not a tragedy. It's a massacre. Is this what 70 years of freedom means for our children? — Kailash Satyarthi (@k_satyarthi) August 11, 2017 
 
 The hospital owed $89,750 to a Lucknow-based medical supply company called Pushpa Sales Private Limited, documents obtained by The Washington Post show, and the firm had written letters to the hospital and district magistrate for the past six months demanding payment. The company asserted that the hospital was violating the terms of its contract by running a balance of more than $15,625. The agreement expired on 31 July, and Pushpa discontinued the oxygen supply on 4 August. 
 
 On Thursday, employees who handled the storage plant that pipes the oxygen wrote to the hospital's chief medical officer to warn him that supplies were low and would last only until Thursday evening, according to a letter obtained by the news channel NDTV. The oxygen supply then dipped to a critical level, the channel said. 
 
 State officials claimed they had obtained sufficient backup supplies from nearby nursing homes. 
 
 The hospital is in Adityanath's parliamentary constituency. The controversial monk, who was tapped by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party to head Uttar Pradesh earlier this year, is the longtime head of a large temple there. 
 
 Adityanath had visited the hospital this week to inaugurate a new critical-care unit. Many of the young patients were suffering from encephalitis, a potentially deadly illness that causes acute swelling of the brain. The disease is often spread by mosquitoes, and infections rise during the monsoon season. 
 
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 Zahid Ali, the father of a five-year-old girl suffering from encephalitis, said he and other family members were still in shock after the death of his daughter Khushi on Friday night. 
 
 Ali said Khushi, who was running a high fever, had been admitted to the hospital's encephalitis ward Thursday. She was responding to treatment while on oxygen, he said, but her condition deteriorated as the cylinders ran dry that night. 
 
 Hospital staff gave the parents a manual resuscitator and asked them to pump it themselves, he said, and he watched in horror as his daughter first became breathless, then turned "stiff and cold." 
 
 "At that time, I understood that my daughter was gone, but doctors kept on telling me that she is still alive," he said. She was pronounced dead several hours later. 
 
 (C) The Washington Post ||||| A hospital in India has been accused of failing to provide enough oxygen after 60 children died on its wards in five days. 
 
 Baba Raghav Das Medical College said 34 babies died at the hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit, 12 died because of encephalitis, and the rest died of other unspecified causes. 
 
 Local media have claimed that some of the deaths were due to a shortage of oxygen which occurred after a supplier withdrew equipment as a result of unpaid bills. 
 
 Parents of at least 35 of the youngsters said that the oxygen supply to the children's ward ran out on Thursday night. 
 
 They said patients' families were given self-inflating bags to help the children breathe. 
 
 Mritunjaya Singh, whose seven-month-old son was at the hospital but was not among the dead, said: "That's the time when the death of the children peaked." 
 
 Image: Medical staff tending to children at the hospital 
 
 Parmatma Gautam, whose one-month-old nephew, Roshan, died, said the hospital and authorities were trying to cover up their failure to pay their bills on time. 
 
 "We saw our baby struggling to breathe and we couldn't do anything," Mr Gautam said. 
 
 District Magistrate Rajiv Rautela said on Saturday that the deaths of the children in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh state, were due to natural causes. 
 
 He denied that insufficient oxygen led to their deaths. 
 
 Kafeel Khan, a hospital doctor, also said the cause of death was not lack of oxygen. 
 
 Uttar Pradesh's government has ordered an investigation and a team of federal health ministry specialists has been sent to the hospital to verify what caused the deaths. 
 
 Prashant Trivedi, the state's top health official, admitted there has been a problem in the pipeline which supplied oxygen. 
 
 Image: A hospital doctor said the cause of death was not lack of oxygen 
 
 But he said it did not cause the children's deaths as there was a sufficient number of oxygen cylinders to ensure all the youngsters could be treated. 
 
 A team of specialists from the federal health ministry was sent to the hospital on Saturday to verify what caused the deaths. 
 
 Opposition leaders blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the state, accusing it of neglect and indifference. 
 
 The opposition Congress Party's Rahul Gandhi said on Twitter: "Deeply pained. My thoughts are with the families of the victims. BJP govt. is responsible & should punish the negligent who caused this tragedy." 
 
 Encephalitis is common in India, especially during the monsoon season, and outbreaks often claim hundreds of lives. 
 
 India spends about 1% of GDP on public health, among the lowest in the world, and successive governments have faced criticism for not reforming the health system. ||||| NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The head of an Indian hospital where dozens of children died in recent days has been suspended, as officials traded blame over cash shortfalls that led to supplies of medical oxygen being cut. 
 
 The government of Uttar Pradesh state, run by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), suspended the head of the state-run BRD Medical College, Rajeev Misra, late on Saturday and ordered an investigation. 
 
 Indian media have said the deaths of 60 children, 34 infants among them, were caused in part by oxygen shortages after a private supplier cut the supply over unpaid bills. 
 
 Hospital officials deny lack of oxygen caused the deaths, saying alternative supplies were found, and blamed many of the deaths instead on encephalitis and unspecified issues related to delivery of the infants. 
 
 On Sunday, J.P. Nadda, health minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, visited the hospital in the town of Gorakhpur, 800 km (507 miles) east of New Delhi, accompanied by the state's chief minister, Yogi Adityanath. 
 
 After the visit, the chief minister urged patience until the investigation was complete. 
 
 "We will know - whether it was because of an oxygen shortage or due to a lack of proper treatment," Adityanath told reporters. "Those found guilty will not be spared." 
 
 Nadda said a team of doctors from New Delhi was working with the local authorities and the federal government was ready to send more assistance. He said Modi was also monitoring the developments. 
 
 The issue of the unpaid bills for oxygen supply has become a flashpoint in relations between the hospital and the state government, after the suspended hospital chief on Saturday accused state officials of not answering his requests for money. 
 
 "I wrote at least three letters," Misra told television reporters on Saturday, adding that he had flagged the issue in video conference discussions. 
 
 A child is seen in the Intensive care unit in the Baba Raghav Das hospital in Gorakhpur district, India August 13, 2017. Cathal McNaughton 
 
 Reuters was unable to immediately contact Misra for comment. 
 
 Adityanath, who had visited the hospital on Aug. 9, said no issue of unpaid bills was brought to his attention and all requests for funds were met promptly. 
 
 Pressure on Bjp 
 
 Slideshow (6 Images) 
 
 Opposition parties have stepped up the pressure on the state government, demanding the resignations of Adityanath and the state health minister. 
 
 "This government is a murderer," said Raj Babbar, head of the opposition Congress party in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous and politically-prized state, where the BJP's thumping victory has strengthened Modi's claim to a second term in 2019. 
 
 Gorakhpur, a down-at-heel town near the border with Nepal, is Adityanath's political base, which elected him to parliament five times before Modi asked him to lead Uttar Pradesh, after a landslide BJP election victory in March. 
 
 A study of government data by nonprofit body Brookings India showing the district has a 26 percent shortage of primary health centres. 
 
 Encephalitis outbreaks kill hundreds in India every year, especially during the monsoon season. 
 
 India's expenditure on public health is about one percent of GDP, among the world's lowest. In recent years, Modi's government has increased health spending and vowed to make healthcare more affordable.
– In a five-day span at a single hospital in India, 60 children have died, 34 of them infants. The rash of deaths, which the Independent reports began last Monday, has led to the suspension of the head of the hospital in Uttar Pradesh state, and it's also spurred a string of questions and finger-pointing. Reuters cites Indian media's take: that some of the deaths were due to a lack of liquid oxygen, with the hospital's supply having been cut off due to unpaid bills. Rajeev Misra oversaw the state-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur before his suspension, and he backs up that assertion, telling the media on Saturday that "I wrote at least three letters" to the government requesting money. A Home Ministry rep was quoted as saying 21 of the deaths were the result of the oxygen shortfall, reports the Washington Post. But other officials and a hospital doctor cited by Sky News say the oxygen supply wasn't a factor. They claim mosquito-borne encephalitis was the cause of 35% of the infant deaths, with the rest being due to unspecified causes. State officials say they were able to bolster the oxygen supply after reaching out to area nursing homes. But parents tell Sky the oxygen supply dried up Thursday night and that parents were offered manual resuscitator bags. The Post obtained documents showing the hospital had been receiving letters regarding unpaid bills for six months, and that nearly $90,000 was owed to a medical supply company. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh has pledged to get to the bottom of the situation: "We will know whether it was because of an oxygen shortage or due to a lack of proper treatment. Those found guilty will not be spared."