For the last week, Meena Kumari, the principal of a primary school in the northern Indian state of Bihar, has been on the run after 50 kids at her school fell ill after eating a lunch that was tainted with pesticide,. Well, her run from the law ended today, when local police took her into custody.
The principal, Meena Kumari, had been on her way to surrender before a judge in Chapra when she was detained by the police, the district police chief, Sujeet Kumar, said in a telephone interview.
Ms. Kumari was among the most wanted people in India after she fled her school in the village of Dharmasati Gandawa in Bihar’s Saran district when the children in her school started vomiting soon after eating a free lunch. Forensic tests have confirmed that the cooking oil used to prepare the meal of rice, beans, potato curry and soy balls was contaminated with pesticide. Ms. Kumari bought the cooking oil from a store owned by her husband, who might have stored the cooking oil in a container once filled with pesticide, the police said.
Kumari was already facing charges of negligence, but according to the BBC,
charges of murder and gross negligence. For those who don't know, she is accused of ordering the cooks to use cooking oil she'd bought at her husband's store, even though they complained that it was discolored and smelled funny. Literally within seconds of the kids starting to eat it, 48 of them fell horribly ill, and anywhere from 23 to 27 of them died. Several parents reported that their kids literally died in their arms after being left to fend for themselves.
The cooking oil was tainted with monocrotophos, a pesticide that is extremely toxic not only to humans, but to birds, shellfish and other wildlife. According to a story that aired on yesterday's Morning Edition, it caused the kids to emit vapors so toxic that doctors couldn't even stand in the room.
Given the uproar going on in the area--cars burned, trains blocked, teachers at another school being beaten up--Kumari is probably in the safest place she can be right now.