Dinanath Singh has a cancerous wound on his left foot from which blood and pus continuously ooze. He has black and white spots (lesions) all over his body. The 61-year-old also suffers from skin cancer. Two fingers of his left hand had developed ulcers and had to be amputated. His ailments are many, but the cause is one: arsenic.

Dinanath lives in Ekawana Rajpur village of Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh. He came to the New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in June 2004 for medical advice. While going through his papers, Neena Khanna, a professor in the dermatology department of AIIMS, and her colleague, Amit Malhotra, came across a startling bit of information. A blood report dated May 12, 2004, showed that Dinanath had 34.40 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic, when the reference limit is a mere 1-4 ppb, as per leading toxicology manuals.

"The presence of such high levels of arsenic in blood can only be possible in case of chronic exposure,' felt Khanna. She was particularly perturbed, as Dinanath belonged to Ballia, where arsenic contamination of groundwater was unknown. Worried, she called Down To Earth. She wanted to know what the possible cause could be of her patient's horrendous ailment. She, like us, had heard of arsenic in West Bengal and Bangladesh. "But he is from Ballia,' she said. Why him? Where is this arsenic coming from?

We were also shocked. Maybe the source of contamination was industrial in nature, we thought. Down To Earth decided to check the story out with the doctor and her patient.

At AIIMS, when Down To Earth asked him about the cause of his disease, Dinanath's answer was surprising. He believed the handpump-drawn water he drinks in his village was laced with arsenic. "What evidence do you have to claim this?' we asked. "The doctors at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) have told me that the water may be contaminated,' he replied. We pursued with our questioning: "But is your well contaminated?' "No. Or rather, I do not know.' His helplessness was evident. "Please tell me,' he told Down To Earth, "if my well has a problem. My family drinks this water. I must know.'

Something was strange
How had this person, from the invisible backwaters of India, made it all the way to Delhi? Dinanath had been an education instructor with the Indian army for almost three decades (since 1962). After retirement in 1991, he joined a charitable organisation based in Betul, Madhya Pradesh. But when his foot got injured in 1996, the wound would not heal. He went to the Jawaharlal Nehru Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, where the doctors asked for a biopsy. The results showed that he was suffering from squamous cell carcinoma (skin cancer). Why? Nobody knew. If the doctors had investigated his blood, they could have worked out that the lesions were because of arsenic poisoning. But no.

From Madhya Pradesh, Dinanath went back to his village in 2002, without knowing that a handpump would seal his fate. His condition deteriorated. Two fingers developed ulcers. In June 2003, Dinanath started visiting the BHU hospital