Patna, July 21: The 23 children of Gandaman Primary School in Saran district lost their lives after consuming midday meal because of alleged gross negligence of the principal, Meena Devi, and the education department officials.

The report of the state adviser to the commissioners of Supreme Court in right to food case indicted the absconding principal for not tasting the food served to the students. It pulled up the education department officials for not inspecting the school for over six months.

Saran district magistrate Abhijeet Sinha today dismissed the block resource person of the midday meal scheme, Satyendra Kumar, for dereliction of duty within hours of the release of the report of the Supreme Court commissioners’ state adviser, Rupesh.

Satyendra’s job was to monitor the midday meal scheme. But he did not conduct any inspection for the past few months, as pointed out in Rupesh’s report a day after the forensic report confirmed the presence of monocrotophos, an organophophate insecticide toxic to birds and humans, in the samples of the food served to the students of the school on July 16.

Preliminary police investigation stated that the edible oil brought to the school from the house of Meena Devi, the principal, contained the pesticide. Rupesh’s report also states that the edible oil was contaminated. Saran superintendent of police Sujeet Kumar said: “Preliminary investigation pointed out that Suman, a student, brought the edible oil container to the school from the house of Meena Devi.”

Suman, the daughter of one of the two cooks of the school, died after consuming the deadly food on Tuesday.

A day after the incident, education minister P.K. Shahi gave a conspiracy angle to the tragedy, claiming that the grocery (edible oil) was supplied to the school from the shop of Arjun Rai, the husband of Meena Devi. He alleged that Arjun was a member of an opposition party (read RJD) having strong presence in the Chhapra region.

The report of Saran commissioner Shashi Shekhar Sharma on the midday meal tragedy, submitted to the chief minister, mentioned that the edible oil was brought from local market. It does not mention a word about Arjun. The report also stated that the edible oil was stored at Meena Devi’s residence, from where it was brought to the school on the fateful day.

The report of the Supreme Court commissioner’s adviser stated that Arjun did not have any shop at Dharmasati Gandaman village, as claimed by Shahi few days back. Repeated attempts to speak to Shahi proved futile.

The report of Rupesh, the state adviser to the commissioners of Supreme Court in right to food case, made some startling revelations pertaining to the implementation of the midday meal scheme at the Gandaman school. Rupesh told The Telegraph: “The school seriously lacked infrastructure. It did not have kitchen shed, nor proper doors and windows.”

He pointed out that there was no need to open the primary school barely half a kilometre away from a middle school. It could have easily functioned from the middle school, he said, adding that the report would be tabled before the commissioners of the Supreme Court in right to food case — Harsh Mander and Naresh Chandra Saxena.

According to Rupesh, there was no management committee at the Gandaman Primary School. The school principal-cum-teacher, Meena Devi, looked after the entire affairs of the institute — right from supervising the midday meal scheme to teaching students.

Education department principal secretary Amarjeet Sinha, however, claimed quoting the Chhapra district education officer that a school management committee existed at Gandaman school.

Facing the ire of people over the midday meal tragedy, the state government is now planning to provide printed instructions to school principals about food quality and safety besides painting the norms on the schools walls. “We are readying detailed instructions about maintaining quality and safety of food served under midday meal scheme in schools,” R. Lakshmanan, the director of midday meal scheme, said.

Meanwhile, a Chhapra police team raided the house of Meena Devi, the principal of Gandaman primary school, around 5pm. Three empty packets of Furadan 3G, a pesticide, were recovered from her house but she was not there.

The failure of the police to arrest the school principal five days after the tragedy has triggered posers on the cops’ intention. “Meena Devi appears to be enjoying political patronage. Else, she would have been arrested by now,” said Vinod Mahto, a resident of Dharmasati Gandaman village who lost his two daughters and a son in the tragedy.

Makeshwar Ram, who lost his grandson in the incident, echoed Mahto and said: “There appears to be lack of will power on the part of the police to arrest the principal.”

The police might move the court tomorrow for attachment of property of Meena Devi.