by Tim Katoga
23 children, at least believed to be aged four to 12, died after vomiting and convulsing from agonizing stomach cramps after eating the meal. Officials and relatives said death came so quickly for some that they died in their parents’ arms while being taken to hospital. Dozens of other children are being treated for food poisoning.
The school provided free meals under the mid-day meal scheme, the world’s largest school feeding program involving 120 million children.
The Indian federal education minister M.M. Pallam Raju, vowed that “action will be taken” against those responsible but he did not single out anyone by name. Some people didn’t take the news lightly. Demonstrators were angered by the deaths that they rioted and pelted a police station with stones, set ablaze buses and other vehicles, chanted slogans denouncing the state government.
Police are still searching for the school headmistress, who has disappeared [on the run].
A forensic report following the death of 23 school children that died in was due to a “highly toxic” concentrated form of insecticide that was in the oil, a forensic report and police said. Additionally, Ravinder Kumar, a senior police officer, told reporters that the poisonous substance in the oil samples was more than five times the (concentration of the) commercial preparation available in the market.
