Headmistress Held in India Poisoning

NEW DELHI?Indian police have arrested the headmistress of the elementary school where a pesticide-contaminated lunch killed 23 children and hospitalized two dozen more, the superintendent of police in the district where the school is located said Wednesday.

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Indian school principal Meena Kumari, center, was arrested Wednesday as she was about to surrender in Chapra, Bihar.

Meena Kumari, who had been missing since the July 16 incident, was arrested in the town of Chapra as she was about to hand herself in to a local court, said Sujeet Kumar, the police superintendent. She hasn't been charged, he said.

"Our main concern now is to interrogate her and get as much detail as we can," Mr. Kumar said.

A court in Chapra issued a warrant for Ms. Kumari's arrest on Monday, a senior official in the state government said. Late Tuesday, the court said it would seize the headmistress's property if she didn't surrender, the official added. This notice was sent to her house and posted in local newspapers, he said. Attempts to contact Ms. Kumari or members of her family were unsuccessful. Her lawyer hasn't commented publicly.

Police started searching Ms. Kumari's home, along with the homes of her parents and other relatives this week after a forensic examination of the school lunch found traces of a chemical compound five times the strength of its level used in commercial pesticide.

The school, which has been closed since July 16, is in Gandaman village, about 60 miles from Patna, the capital of Bihar state, and 25 miles from the town of Chapra. Chapra is also the name of the district in which Gandaman is located.

Bereaved families buried many of the dead children in the school playground and nearby.

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Children and activists shout antigovernment slogans as they march to parliament in New Delhi demonstrating against the death of 23 children in Bihar, July 20.

Mr. Kumar said Monday that the headmistress was central to the investigation. "Everything ends at her. We are still trying to understand why the pesticide was used in such large quantity in the food."

The cook had noticed a strange color and foul smell from the cooking oil when preparing the lunch, but the headmistress told her to serve the food, said Bihar's education minister, P.K. Shahi. The cook was also hospitalized after eating the food.

Ms. Kumari's husband, Arjun Rai, and their two children, who didn't attend the school, are still missing, Mr. Kumar said, but an arrest warrant hasn't been issued for any of them. "We are investigating whether he [Mr. Rai] had a role in the deaths," he said.

During their investigations, police found empty bottles of pesticide at Ms. Kumari and Mr. Rai's home, Mr. Kumar said, adding that the couple owned farmland.

The incident has raised concerns about a government initiative to provide free lunches at schools across the country.

Local government and police officials conducting a joint investigation said the school in Gandaman had inadequate infrastructure and poor hygiene conditions, R. Lakshamanan, the head of the government's school-lunch program in Bihar, said over the weekend. The elementary school in Gandaman is a one-room building and the cook prepared food outside.

Investigators discovered monocrotophos, a highly toxic 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 the meal.

Mr. Lakshamanan said the official in charge of the school-lunch program in the school district has been fired and that the government has requested schools carry out stringent checks of food served under the free-lunch program. Current guidelines state the school cook and a teacher should taste food before it is served to children.

The official added that cooks will be trained to follow proper hygiene standards when preparing food and serving children, while parents will be brought into schools on a rotational basis to monitor standards. The government also plans to close schools with inadequate cooking infrastructure, such as roofless kitchens, or merge them with nearby schools.

Abhijit Sinha, magistrate of Chapra district, said the elementary school in Gandaman will remain closed.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said the government will open a new school and a health clinic in Gandaman village.

"We have decided for all-round development of the ill-fated village, be it road, water supply, we will provide it all," Mr. Kumar said during a televised news conference.

Bereaved parents and politicians from opposing parties have criticized Mr. Kumar for not visiting the village or the many sick children still in the hospital in Patna.

Officials from Mr. Kumar's Janata Dal (United) Party told The Wall Street Journal that the chief minister was unable to leave his home as he had suffered a hairline fracture of his little toe on July 13.

"He will surely see the children and their families once fit," JD(U) General Secretary K.C. Tyagi said. A spokesman for Mr. Kumar said doctors had advised him to take three weeks of rest.

Ram Kirpal Yadav, a senior member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Bihar's main opposition party, said Mr. Kumar was being insensitive to the families of the dead and sick children. "Even if he has hurt his toe, he should have at least gone to the hospital in Patna in a wheelchair," he said.

Write to Vibhuti Agarwal at vibhuti.agarwal@wsj.com and Rajesh Roy at rajesh.roy@dowjones.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323610704578625452416498788.html?mod=asia_home

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