The children started falling violently ill soon after they ate the free school lunch of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes.
The food, part of a program that gives poor Indian students
at least one hot meal a day, was tainted with insecticide, and soon 22
of the students were dead and dozens were hospitalized, officials said
on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear how chemicals ended up in the
food at the school in the eastern state of Bihar. One official said that
the food may not have been properly washed before it was cooked.
The children, between the ages of 5 and 12, got sick soon after
eating lunch on Tuesday in Gandamal village in Masrakh block, 80
kilometres north of the state capital of Patna. School authorities
immediately stopped serving the meal as the children started vomiting.
Savita, a 12-year-old student who uses only one name, said
she had a stomach ache after eating soybeans and potatoes and started
vomiting.
"I don't know what happened after that," Savita said in an
interview at Patna Medical College Hospital, where she and many other
children were recovering.
The lunch was cooked in the school kitchen.
The children were rushed to a local hospital and later to Patna for treatment, said state official Abhijit Sinha.
In addition to the 22 children who died, another 25 children
and the school cook were in hospital undergoing treatment, P.K. Sahi,
the state education minister. Three children were in serious condition.
Asha Devi holds her head while sitting next to her
sick daughter Savita who consumed spurious meals at a school on Tuesday,
at a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Patna.
Photo: Reuters
Authorities suspended an official in charge of the free meal
scheme in the school and registered a case of criminal negligence
against the school headmistress, who fled as soon as the children fell
ill.
Angry villagers, joined by members of local opposition
parties, closed shops and businesses near the school and overturned and
burned four police vehicles.
Mr Sahi said a preliminary investigation suggested the food
contained an organophosphate used as an insecticide on rice and wheat
crops. It's believed the grain was not washed before it was served at
the school, he said.
Indian schoolchildren at Jahangirpura Shala Number 2,
which is run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, are served their
free mid-day meal in Ahmedabad.
Photo: AFP
However, local villagers said the problem appeared to be with
a side dish of soybeans and potatoes, not grain. Children who had not
eaten that dish were fine, although they had eaten the rice and lentils,
several villagers told the AP.
Mr Sinha said the cooked food and kitchen utensils have been
seized by investigators. "Whether it was a case of negligence or was
intentional, we will only know once the inquiry has been conducted," he
said.
India's midday meal scheme is one of the world's biggest
school nutrition programs. State governments have the freedom to decide
on menus and timings of the meals, depending on local conditions and
availability of food rations.
It was first introduced in southern India,
where it was seen as an incentive for poor parents to send their
children to school.
Since then the program has been replicated across the
country, covering some 120 million school children. It's as part of an
effort to address concerns about malnutrition, which the government says
nearly half of all Indian children suffer from.
Although there have been occasional complaints about the
quality of the food served, or the lack of hygiene, the tragedy in Bihar
appeared to be unprecedented for the massive food program.
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