- Wednesday, March 05, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
A number of students from a school in West Bengal, an eastern state in India, fell sick on Monday (9) after eating food from a container which had a snake inside.
Around 20 students fell sick and were taken to a local hospital after consuming rice from the container in which the reptile was found, said the authorities of the school located in the state’s Birbhum district, a local report said.
State of West Bengal A whole snake in the mid-day meal of p.s Mayureshwar Mandalpur Primary School in Birbhum.
Many children are sick after eating this cooked food.
Who is responsible for this ?? @MajiDevDutta @jdhankhar1 @rashtrapatibhvn @SuvenduWB @anjanaomkashyap @aajtak pic.twitter.com/RyBJBJKvl0— Rajesh Dutta (@RajeshD35635873) January 9, 2023
The incident occurred at Mandalpur primary school of the state’s Mayureshwar area.
The students allegedly vomited after eating the meal at school, popularly called the mid-day meal, a school-meal scheme in India aimed at bettering the nutritional standing of school-going children across the country.
While the students were later discharged from the hospital barring one who was however said to be stable and out of danger, the police said.
The school headmaster told local media that “everyone was asked to stop eating” after one of the two women who cooked the food found the snake in the container.
But some village residents protested after learning about the incident and even vandalised the principal’s vehicle, local media reports said.
Police officers rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation and the principal had to be sheltered from angry residents.
Praloy Naik, chairman of West Bengal’s Primary Education Board, said it was a case of “carelessness” and those having responsibility for cooking and serving food to children should be more alert, the report added.
