Patna: After the death of 22 children while eating mid day meal contaminated with insecticide, thousands of student had refused mid day meal in Bihar due to ear of poison on Thursday.
As it is known as children between age four to 12, died after eating lentils, vegetables and rice cooked at a village school in Bihar on Tuesday which had generate violent protests and an investigation into the cause.
Approx. 30 children remain ill in hospital Patna and the city of Chhapra after eating the food, which initial tests showed may have been tainted with insecticide.
A senior state government official said that now Children are dumping their meals in bins or refusing to even touch them, despite pleas from school officials that the tragedy would not occur again.
Lakshmanan, director of mid day meal scheme in Bihar said, “Parents have warned their children to not even touch the meal served in the school.”
He also added, “Some of the students dumped the lunch in school dustbins and we are trying to convince everyone that the tragedy will not be repeated.”
Police had stepped up their investigation into the tragedy and started conducting raids all over in district of Saran where the incident happened. Police raided the home of the school headmistress, Meena Kumari, who fled after the children started dying on Tuesday.
A state government minister has said the cook complained to the headmistress about the smell of the oil used to cook the meal, before going ahead on Tuesday. But the headmistress allegedly dismissed her concerns, the minister said.
An official who is investing the deaths said, “We found two containers filled with insecticide in the headmistress’s house along with pulses, vegetables and rice allotted for the midday meals.”
“Only the headmistress can tell whether the incident was a conspiracy or a blunder caused due to carelessness.”
It is also known as from the day this scheme had implanted, there is a complaint of several irregularities and there is also smell of corruption in this scheme on broad spectrum. It is not the first case due to infectious mid day meal scheme; there are several cases after which government promise for fair steps for the removal of such incidents but this incident shows us the plans of government and awareness toward health of children.
Bureau Report
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