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Updated: Jun 17, 2019 16:55 IST

Union home minister Amit Shah’s tweet “another strike on Pakistan” congratulating the Indian cricket team for its victory in the World Cup on Sunday, drew a scathing response from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) which asked him to carry out a strike on encephalitis after the disease claimed more than 100 lives in Bihar this month.

“Sir, please do a strike on encephalitis in Bihar. More than 200 kids have been died due to it. Thanking you in anticipation!” the RJD tweeted, drawing Shah’s attention to the disease that has ravaged Muzaffarpur district over the past two weeks. Most of the victims have been children.

Sir, please do a strike on encephalitis in Bihar. More than 200 kids have been died due to it. Thanking you in anticipation! https://t.co/txeMlgmYkU — Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) June 17, 2019

By Monday afternoon, the official count of encephalitis casualties stood at 102 with all but one of the deaths taking place in Muzaffarpur.

Amit Shah choice of words for praising the Indian team was largely seen as reference to the two surgical strikes India carried out on terror camps in 2016 and 2019.

On Sunday, relatives of patients created a ruckus at a government-run hospital Muzaffarpur while Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan was visiting to take stock of the situation. The demonstrators alleged inadequate services by the hospital and negligence by politicians

Earlier on Sunday, Bihar’s urban development and housing department minister Suresh Sharma said there was a shortage of beds and Intensive Care Units (ICU) to tackle the emergency situation in the state in the wake of the outbreak of encephalitis.