India arrests principal in school lunch poisoning deaths

NEW DELHI — The principal at an Indian elementary school where 23 children died last week after eating free lunches contaminated with pesticide was arrested Wednesday on murder and criminal conspiracy charges after eight days on the run.

Principal Meena Devi, 35, was caught in Chhapra, the city where the tragedy occurred in India’s impoverished northern state of Bihar.

On July 16, about 50 children — most younger than 10 — attending Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School complained of feeling sick after eating their lunch, which was provided free under a national government program that feeds an estimated 120 million children.

By the evening, 20 had died and several others were in a hospital, many in critical condition. Over the next few days, distraught parents cremated their children a few hundred yards from the school amid calls for Devi’s arrest.

A total of 24 children, along with Manju Devi, the woman who cooked the soybeans, vegetables and rice, remain in the hospital. The cook is not related to Meena Devi.

Abhijit Sinha, the district magistrate in Chhapra, said the principal didn’t turn herself in voluntarily, as some local news reports suggested. He said police had staked out various locations since an arrest warrant was issued Monday and finally caught up with her Wednesday morning after a tip.

“She is now being interrogated in the Chhapra police station and will appear before a magistrate tomorrow,” Sinha said late Wednesday. “Medical teams have been dispatched to help the grieving parents.”

Bihar Education Minister P.K. Shahi alleged last week that groceries and other supplies used in preparing the meal were purchased from a store run by Meena Devi’s husband, who also fled, though he hasn’t been charged.

Police raided the couple’s house twice in the last three days and reportedly recovered a bottle of pesticide. A notice affixed to the building’s exterior listed Meena Devi as a declared offender and said the property would be seized if she didn’t surrender to police.

An investigation is underway, but a forensic report released Saturday found pesticide in cooking oil samples taken from a recovered container, on a platter and utensils and in food served that day. Police said tests of the samples taken showed the insecticide, an organophosphorus compound, was highly concentrated.

Shahi alleged that several children complained about the taste of the food but that Meena Devi insisted they eat it. Other reports said the cook also complained but her concern was brushed aside.

The incident has led to extensive soul-searching and complaints about corruption and mismanagement in Indian welfare programs.

“There are broader lessons here,” said Jayati Ghosh, a professor in the School of Social Sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “With school meals, there needs to be much greater monitoring and oversight.”

With a suspect apprehended, others said, there’s a risk the country will ignore deeper structural problems in its welfare system.

“Making the most local functionary responsible for something like this and feeling that justice is done is really unfair,” said Harsh Mander, a former member of the National Advisory Council that advises the prime minister on social issues. “If there’s a wake-up call, it’s how casually we dispense programs for the poor. If this happened to your child or mine, there would be far greater outcry.”

The tragedy has also led to extensive finger-pointing, with some state politicians suggesting the poisoning was deliberate to discredit the ruling party, a conclusion discounted by others who saw it as a more straight-forward case of negligence after the same container was used for pesticide and food.

The Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School, which opened in 2010, remains shuttered and officials said its students would be transferred to a nearby school. The government has provided $3,500 in compensation to each family that lost a child.

Schools in rural areas are often rudimentary, and the 125-student Dharmasati Gandaman Primary School had one teacher, who was on medical leave, and Meena Devi, who also taught in addition to her role as principal.

The school is in a single 200-square-foot room that doubles as a community hall at the beginning of the main road running through Gandaman village. Reports say the entry to the school is through a gash in the wall, with no proper door, windows or cooking facilities. The floor is badly broken and a nearby hand pump dispenses water unfit to drink.

Government regulations mandate that teachers taste the free lunches before they’re served to children, a requirement with which Meena Devi reportedly didn’t comply.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Tanvi Sharma in The Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.