Mid-day meal: All eyes on FSL report

Three days after 23 children died due to contaminated mid-day meal in Bihar's Saran district, the Forensic Science Laboratory's report, likely to come out late Friday, was keenly awaited as it would reveal whether there was poison in the food.

Amarjeet Sinha, principal secretary, education, had Thursday said it was not a case of food poisoning but poison in food. He said preliminary findings pointed to insecticide poisoning of the oil and vegetables.

According to a Saran district official, the forensic science experts had collected samples of the oil used to cook the meal late Tuesday night. "The oil samples had a bad odour," officials said.

The post-mortem of the children confirmed presence of a poisonous substance in the potato-soyabean curry without detailing the poison.

Saran District Magistrate Abhijit Sinha also said that the FSL report was awaited.

Soon after the deaths, a top government official said that he suspected it could be organo-phosphorous poisoning caused due to traces of insecticides in vegetables. He added that doctors had told him that atropine had a positive effect on the affected children.

He also did not rule out contamination of the oil used to prepare the curry. Chandrasekhar Singh, a doctor in a government hospital in Saran, who treated several children Tuesday, said 10 kids, who did not eat the curry, are safe. "As many as 55 of 65 children fell ill after having the curry and some died," he said.

He pointed that contaminated oil might be the reason for food poisoning as students who did not eat the vegetable were safe .According to district officials, the meal consisted of rice, pulses and potato-soyabean curry.

Parents of several children told officials that their children fell ill due to poisonous vegetable. "Some children, who consumed only rice and pulses, did not fall ill," they said.