PATNA: Grieving parents attacked a headteacher’s house to protest the deaths of 23 pupils who ate a poisoned school lunch and the response by officials to the tragedy, police and witnesses said yesterday.
Parents also angrily protested outside the community hall in the village in Bihar, where the children died after being served a meal, apparently laced with insecticide, on Tuesday, a senior policeman said.
“There was ransacking of the principal’s house,” Superintendent Sujit Kumar told AFP.
“There were sporadic incidents of violence,” added Kumar.
The deputy development commissioner of Saran district, which oversees the school meal programme, said that local officers had also briefed him on the unrest.
“Our teams on the ground reported that angry parents did try to damage the house of the headmistress,” Raman Kumar said.
Surendra Rai, who was one of the parents who took part in the attack on headmistress Meena Kumari’s home, said there was widespread anger both towards the teacher and the police.
“Why have the police not been able to arrest the headmistress who forced our children to eat poisonous food? She should be killed,” said Rai, whose daughter was among those who died.
A reporter on the scene said he saw windows of the home smashed, while anguished parents also protested outside the government community centre in the village.
20 students fall ill
Twenty children were hospitalised yesterday after they ate lunch at school in the state of Goa.
Police said the incident was reported in a privately-run school in the village of Usgao, 40km from Panaji, capital of the western Indian state.
Officials said the students were taken to a state-run hospital after they ate meals in school and fell ill. They were later released.
Goa education department director Anil Powar said an inquiry was under way into the reported mass-poisoning in St Joseph High School.
AFP
