CM doubts meal tragedy version as teacher held

IANS/PatnaThe principal of a government primary school in Bihar where 23 children died after eating contaminated food was arrested yesterday even as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the incident “did not look like an accident”. Minutes before she was arrested, school principal Meena Devi demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the tragedy.Superintendent of police Sujit Kumar said Devi, the principal of the school at Gandaman village in Saran district where the tragedy occured, was arrested by the special investigation team. A first information report has been registered against her on penal charges of murder and criminal conspiracy, police said.Commenting on the deaths of the children, Kumar said: “This does not look like an accident. “The children had pointed out that something was wrong with the food,” he said, and wanted to know why the food was still thrust on them. “The accounts given by people, the forensic report, the concentration of pesticide (in the meal), all this points towards something,” he said.The chief minister said police will probe all angles and the guilty will not be spared. “We believe everything will come to light in the police investigation. It is a very sad and heart wrenching incident,” he said.Without naming any political party, Kumar wanted to know why a shutdown was called when the children were being rushed to hospitals, and why police vehicles rushing to the site were attacked.“This is very strange,” he said.Kumar tried to explain why he had not visited the village where the tragedy took place. “I do not need to tell the Patna media about the condition of my leg.”He also pledged to develop the affected village. “We can’t bring back the children who have died but we will do whatever we can for the village.” Devi, who was suspended from service for gross negligence, had been dodging arrest from the day of the incident on July 16, police said. Police raided her house twice and recovered a bottle of pesticide, traces of which were suspected to be present in the school food.According to district officials, Devi had forced the cook to use an allegedly contaminated cooking oil despite the latter’s complaint that it had a pungent smell. A forensic lab report on Saturday confirmed presence of toxic insecticide traces in the cooking oil used for making food at the school.The poisonous substance, organophosphorus, in oil samples collected from school was more than five times the commercial preparation available in market, police said. Before her arrest, Meena Devi told a Hindi news channel in Saran: “I am innocent and (have been) framed in the case. I demand a CBI probe.” She also denied that her husband owned a grocery shop from where food and groceries for the mid-day meal were purchased.