Six students of the Asish Bhawan Project Upper Primary School in the district headquarters town of Nabarangpur were admitted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) on Saturday when they were taken ill after consuming the curry served in their midday meal, which was allegedly poisoned.
While it was alleged that a woman teacher had mixed poison in the curry, she strongly refuted the charge, saying she has been deliberately trapped.
Reports said the incident is fallout of the bickering between the headmistress and a teacher of the school. Both have been suspended following the incident.
Those admitted to the hospital are Zarina Harijan, Priyanka Harijan and Rajendra Harijan (all students of Standard II), Manisha Harijan (Standard I, Pabitra Suna (Standard VIII) and Sipun Harijan (Standard VI).
While the conditions of Sipun and Pabitra are stated to be serious, the conditions of the others are relatively better, reports said.
While the midday meal was being served to 140 students in the school premises, assistant teacher Sanjeebani Karkara allegedly mixed something which looked like rice flakes (liya in Odia) to the curry using a ladle and herself served it to some students.
The school’s cook reported the matter to headmistress Soubhagini Nayak, who asked the staff to stop serving meals and inquired from Sanjeebani what she had mixed in the curry.
The cook and headmistress later said during an inquiry that following the incident they had dumped the entire cooked stuff in a drain. As news spread, guardians of students gathered in the school demanding an end to the dispute over the post of headmistress and sought transfer of all teachers.
Following information, Nabarangpur Collector Mohammed Sadiq Alam asked local tehsildar Gunanidhi Nayak to visit the school and submit a report. Nayak has recorded the statements of the headmistress, teacher Sanjeebani Karkara and cook Surekha Das.
“Both headmistress Soubhagini Nayak and assistant lady teacher Sanjeebani Karkara have been suspended with immediate effect,” said District Project Coordinator (DPC), OPEPA, Ramchandra Nahak.
While the headmistress has complained that Sanjeebani has been harassing her ever since she joined the school, the latter has stated that this is a conspiracy against her and she knew nothing about the charges brought against her.
Sanjeebani demanded a lab test of the so-called poisoned food. She said she was never interested for the post of headmistress and was taking good care of the midday meal duty assigned to her.