The number of young children killed after eating contaminated mid-day meal at a government school in north Bihar reached 22 on Wednesday amid reports that traces of an agricultural insecticide were found in the meals served to them. Public protests turned violent and a fierce political blame game began.
At Dharmsati village in Saran (Chapra) district’s Mashrakh block, open grounds around the primary school the dead children attended became an unexpected burial site as wailing parents laid to final rest their dead kids, all aged below 10 and ranging from Class 1 to 5.
At the Patna Medical College and Hospital, 25 children from the school who also ate the mid-day meal were struggling for life in the ICU of paediatric department.
While a forensic report for the cause of the deaths was awaited, a preliminary investigation reportedly found that the meals had traces of organo-phosphate, an insecticide used on paddy and wheat crops, which might have come because the grains were not washed before being cooked.
The viscera of the 16 children who died at Chapra was sent to PMCH for examination.
“It is not a case of food-poisoning, but poisoning. The ongoing investigation will confirm if the poison was added unintentionally or with a mala fide intention,” said Bihar education minister P.K. Sahi. He openly directed his suspicion at an Opposition party and did not rule out a political conspiracy behind the tragedy.
“The role of schoolteacher Meena Kumari and her husband Arjun Rai, an active member of a political party who owns a grocery shop at Dharmasati Bazar from where the grains and oil were purchased for the school meals, are being probed. Both Rai and his relative Dhruv Rai are close to a very senior leader of this party. I do not think these are a mere coincidence,” said Sahi amid charges of politicising the tragic incident.
Most students at this school, set up three years ago, come from minority and extremely backward communities.