Bandhu Tirkey with one of the students released from Apollo on Wednesday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, Nov. 18: Visceral samples of the five Bero students who died of food poisoning on November 14 finally reached the State Forensic Sciences Laboratory (SFSL) this evening, four days after the post-mortem.

A blame game ensued between police officers and employees of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) as both parties accused each other of the delay.

In another development, 10 students admitted to Apollo Hospital were released around 11.30am today in the presence of human resource development minister Bandhu Tirkey.

Talking to The Telegraph, Officer-in-charge, Bero police station, Shiv Chander Singh, who was entrusted with the task of taking the samples to the laboratory, called the process “tiresome”.

“When I reached RIMS for the samples, officials at the forensic medicine department were on a lunch break. I had to wait from the afternoon till late evening for the samples,” Singh complained.

The department official in-charge, Tulsi Mahto, however, defended himself and said that he had taken “every step” to ensure a speedy dispatch. “I had asked officials to take that extra effort,” Mahto said.

He added that the samples were kept ready for immediate release after November 14, when the post-mortem was completed. He said the process got delayed because no police officer turned up to collect it.

“Collecting the sample is an officer’s responsibility, because it requires a court’s permission. Thus, they should be questioned if there was a delay,” he added.

Interestingly, SFSL director A.K Bapuli, till the evening, was unaware if his institute had received the samples as yet. “I have not received any information about any samples so far,” he said.

Bandhu Tirkey today gifted the released children woollen clothes and along with that Apollo authorities also gave them trousers, shirts and shoes. “Our nurses had become attached with the children, thus when it was time to leave, they decided they could not let the boys leave empty-handed,” said an official.

The leader of the Opposition, Arjun Munda, visited Bero and discussed problems of government-run tribal residential schools with local people, while former MLA Vishwanath Bhagat continued with his hunger strike to protest the five deaths today.

This was the minister’s fourth day.