OIL used to cook a school lunch that led to the deaths of 23 pupils in eastern India contained powerful insecticide, a forensic report said Saturday.
The children died after eating lentils, potatoes and rice cooked at the school last Tuesday with oil containing an agricultural insecticide – organophosphorus – that was five times the strength sold in the market place, the report said.
“The report has found organophospharus in oil samples collected from the school where the mid-day meal was prepared and consumed by the children,” Ravinder Kumar, a senior police officer, told reporters in Bihar state capital Patna.
“It was observed by the scientists of the Forensic Science Laboratory that the poisonous substance in the (food) oil samples was more than five times the commercial preparation available in the market,” Mr Kumar added.
Many of the 23 victims, aged four to 12, from Gandaman village in Bihar, were buried in a playing field adjacent to the primary school that served the free school lunch – the only meal of the day for a number of the poor youngsters.
Some 24 children and a cook are still being treated in hospital, but medical officials said they were believed to be out of danger.
Mr Kumar would not be drawn on whether the insecticide had found its way into the oil deliberately.
“It is a matter of investigation how and where this poisonous substance got mixed into the oil,” he told reporters.
GRIEVING parents attacked a headteacher’s house in eastern India to protest the deaths of 23 pupils who ate a poisoned school lunch.
Parents also angrily protested outside the community hall in the village in Bihar state, where the children died after being served a meal, apparently laced with insecticide, on Tuesday, a senior policeman said.
“There was ransacking of the principal’s house,” Superintendent Sujit Kumar said.
“There were sporadic incidents of violence,” added Mr Kumar.
The deputy development commissioner of Saran district, which oversees the school meal program, said that local officers had also briefed him on the unrest.
“Our teams on the ground reported that angry parents did try to damage the house of the headmistress,” Raman Kumar said.
Surendra Rai, who was one of the parents who took part in the attack on headmistress Meena Kumari’s home, said there was widespread anger both towards the teacher and the police.
“Why have the police not been able to arrest the headmistress who forced our children to eat poisonous food? She should be killed,” said Ms Rai, whose daughter was among those who died in the tragedy.
Windows of the home were smashed, while anguished parents also protested outside the government community centre in the village.
Many of the victims, aged four to 12, from Gandaman village, were buried on a playing field adjacent to the primary school that served the free meal of rice, lentils and potatoes – the only meal of the day for many.
Some 24 children and a cook remain sick in a hospital in the state capital Patna, an official said.
Authorities said they are probing whether the food or the cooking oil was accidentally or deliberately poisoned.
Officials said on Thursday it appeared from post mortem results that the food was contaminated with a pesticide. The results of more detailed tests on the ingredients are expected to be ready later Friday.
Mr Rai said his eight-year-old daughter had died within minutes of eating the lunch, echoing stories from other parents who said their children perished in their arms before they could get them to hospital.
India runs the world’s largest school feeding program, involving 120 million children, and Bihar is one of India’s most populated and poorest states.
Educators see the scheme as a way to increase school attendance, in a country where almost half of all young children are undernourished.
But children throughout the country often suffer from food poisoning due to poor hygiene in kitchens and occasionally sub-standard food.
Mr Kumar said they had earlier raided the home of Kumari, who fled with her husband and brother-in-law when they saw children falling ill in the school.
“We found bags of fertilisers and pesticides kept next to bags of potato and rice in the headmistress’s house,” Mr Kumar said.
“She was an educated woman, so why was she storing poison and food together?”
Parents said the headmistress had invited every child from the village to attend school on Tuesday as she wanted to distribute free books and uniforms.
“I sent my daughter hoping she would get all the books for the year but she never came home,” said Ajay Kumar, a farmer whose five-year-old daughter was among the victims.
A large field at the front of the school where the pupils used to play has been turned into a mass graveyard, where many of the children have been buried in protest at the tragedy.
Mounds dot the field marking individual graves where children were laid to rest, many along with their favourite toys.
Source: News.com.au