Gandaman Primary School principal Meena Devi’s residence in Saran district. Telegraph picture

A week after the midday meal tragedy the government is still grasping at straws to ascertain if Arjun Rai supplied the food ingredients or even owned a grocery shop.

Twenty-three children died after consuming midday meal at the Gandaman Primary School on July 16 but principal Meena Devi is still absconding along with her husband, Arjun Rai. The government has forwarded two reports after investigations and has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT). However, queries on whose shop the ingredients used in the midday meal were sourced from have left the district administration and investigators confused.

A senior officer in the Saran administration told The Telegraph on Tuesday: “No shop has been sealed till now. It is still unclear if Arjun Rai, who is absconding with his wife, owned a shop of any kind or not. He owns a small commercial complex in the Masrakh block, which houses some shops, but we are almost 99 per cent sure that he didn’t own any shop. Among the stores at the complex, one or two are grocery shops were rented out by Rai. We are yet to ascertain if the edibles were supplied to the school from these shops or not, though. There are some confusion.”

He admitted that several villagers had claimed the shop from where the ingredients were bought belonged to Rai, but added that they have not been able to identify the shop yet.

The court of the Saran chief judicial magistrate on Tuesday ordered the notice of property attachment to be pasted at Meena Devi’s residence in the village. She has a month to surrender, failing which her property would be attached.

Members of the SIT team headed by Saran superintendent of police Sujeet Kumar also searched Meena Devi’s house on Tuesday and recorded the operation on video. A senior police officer associated with the investigation said an oil container was seized from the house.

“The sample collected from the oil container will be sent to the forensic science laboratory in Patna for examination and would be matched with those collected from the spot on the day of the incident,” the officer said.

But criticism of the government from the opposition parties continued to pour in.

Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who met the grieving families at Gandaman village on Tuesday, said a lot of lives could have been saved if the children were taken quickly to Patna Medical College and Hospital.

“Why has the SIT been formed after a week? Why didn’t the state government react the next day? This shows the insensitivity of the government,” he added.