NEW DELHI—Indian police investigating a poisoning that killed 23 schoolchildren searched the homes of the headmistress’s parents and other relatives Monday, as they continued to look for her and her husband.
The headmistress, Meena Kumari, and her husband, Arjun Rai, have been missing since last Tuesday, when children fell sick after eating lunch contaminated with pesticide at an elementary school in Gandaman village in Bihar state’s Chapra district.
Forensic experts investigating poisoned food that killed 23 children at an Indian school found a chemical compound in the food that was five times stronger than the amount used even in commercial pesticides. The WSJ’s Michael Arnold and Rajesh Roy have the story.
Their 15-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter are also missing, said Sujeet Kumar, superintendent of police in Chapra. “They must be with the parents,” he said. The two children study at a private school in Mashrakh, about six miles from the school where the poisoning occurred, he added.
“We are trying our best to get hold of [Ms. Kumari] as she is key to the investigation. Everything ends at her,” Mr. Kumar said as police returned to her parents’ home for a second day. He added that Ms. Kumari’s parents were questioned and that police have solid leads, but he declined to elaborate. Ms. Kumari’s parents couldn’t be reached to comment. A senior state government official said a local court Monday issued an arrest warrant against the headmistress.
Kalpana Devi, a teacher who had been missing since last Tuesday, has been found in a local hospital, Mr. Kumar said. She wasn’t at the school when the poisoning took place, he added. The teacher’s hospital visit was unrelated to the poisoning. “She had no information on the whereabouts of the headmistress,” Mr. Kumar said. Ms. Devi wasn’t available to comment.
Abhijit Sinha, magistrate of Chapra district, said the elementary school in Gandaman village, which has been shut since last Tuesday, will be closed down. Many of the children who died after eating the school lunch have been buried in the school playground or nearby.
“The school will no more function from the panchayat [municipal] community hall from where it was presently running. It will be merged with a nearby middle school in Bahuarah since the school has a proper building and covered cooking space,” Mr. Sinha said.
Local government and police officials conducting a joint investigation submitted a report to the state government that said inadequate infrastructure at the school and poor food and hygiene were partly to blame for the poisoning, R. Lakshamanan, the head of the government’s school-lunch program in Bihar, said over the weekend.
The incident has raised concerns about a government initiative to provide free lunches at schools across the country.
Two dozen children and the school cook are under observation at Patna Medical College and Hospital in the state capital. A hospital official had said the children could be released Monday, but a senior pediatrician at the hospital later said they won’t be discharged until later in the week.
Reuters
Friday’s free midday meal at a primary school in the Indian state of Bihar’s Chapra district—the district where a school lunch Tuesday left 23 children dead
“There are still some signs of poison in a few children. We don’t want to take any chances. We should hopefully start discharging them from Thursday,” the pediatrician, Nigam Prakash Narain, said.
Vinay Yadav, head of the government hospital in Chapra where the children were initially taken after eating the contaminated lunch, rejected a newspaper report that said doctors had administered the wrong medicine to the children. The Deccan Herald, citing unnamed sources, said Monday that doctors initially gave the children medicine for diarrhea instead of poisoning.
“Our team did all that it could do to save lives of children, but poison had spread by the time they got here,” he said.
Forensic experts found traces of a chemical compound in a plastic container that stored mustard oil for cooking at the school, as well as on eating utensils and leftover vegetables from Tuesday’s meal, Bihar’s police chief Abhayanand, who uses only one name, said Saturday. The strength of the chemical compound, monocrotophos, was five times higher than its level used in commercial pesticide, he said.
Rama Rao, director of Medical Toxicology at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York’s Presbyterian Hospital, said monocrotophos is one of many types of organophosphate pesticides sprayed on crops.
Mr. Kumar, the superintendent in Chapra, said the headmistress and her family have some farmland and that empty bottles of pesticide were found at her home. “We are still trying to understand why the pesticide was used in such large quantity in the food,” he said.
R. Lakshamanan, the head of the government’s school-lunch program in Bihar, said inquiries had found that the headmistress and her husband own agricultural land. “If they were involved in farming, it is logical that bottles of pesticide were stored at their house,” he said.
In the state capital Patna, roughly 60 miles from the elementary school, around 70 members of the National Students Union of India tried to vandalize the home of the state education minister, P.K. Shahi, according to police and the union. Protesters painted the name sign on the entry gate to his residence black and then broke it, said Rohit Kumar, vice president of the NSUI in Bihar.
“We want the education minister to resign. It has been a week since the incident happened, but the government hasn’t been able to make even a single arrest,” Mr. Kumar said. Mr. Shahi couldn’t be reached to comment.
Jayant Kant, superintendent of police in Patna, said the protest was quickly brought under control.
The NSUI is a student wing of India’s ruling Congress party. Bihar is ruled by the Janata Dal (United) party, which last month ended its alliance with India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Write to Rajesh Roy at rajesh.roy@dowjones.com and Vibhuti Agarwal at vibhuti.agarwal@wsj.com
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