Krishnagar, Aug. 5: Two children bitten by a snake in their sleep in a Nadia madarsa hostel died today although they were taken to a hospital stocked with anti-venom serum within 35 minutes but were not given the antidote because of alleged misinformation or misdiagnosis.

The doctor apparently went by the patient party's alleged suspicion that the boys had been bitten by insects and said he did not find any fang mark.

Another student, who too was bitten by the snake, is in the ICU of a Kalyani hospital.

Shakil Mandal, 14, and Abdul Qadir Mondal, 12, both of whom died, and Shamirul Gharami, 12, had cried out in pain at the hostel of Dar-ul-Uloom Mahmudia Madarsa in Chapra around 12.30am. Shamirul said from his hospital bed that he had immediately realised he had been bitten by a snake.

Madarsa teachers and civic police volunteers arranged for a Tata Sumo in which the trio were taken to Chapra block hospital at 1.05am.

Doctor Anup Kumar Raha, who attended to the boys, said those who brought them had told him that the trio had been bitten by insects. He said he did not see any bite marks on the bodies of the children, who were administered saline.

"The persons who accompanied the children did not tell me they had been bitten by a snake. They said the boys had been bitten by insects. Moreover, there were no visible bite marks on their bodies. I examined them in detail and then administered an injection and put them on saline before referring them to Krishnagar. I did not want to take any risk and took the step for better treatment," Raha said. #None of the students were administered the anti-venom serum, which is stocked in all government hospitals in the districts because of the presence of a large number of snakes, mostly the poisonous cobra and krait.

Iqramul Mondal, a teacher of the madarsa who accompanied the students, said: "The doctor administered injections and put the students on saline before referring them to the district hospital in Krishnagar. He said he did not want to take any risk. We lost about an hour in reaching the district hospital, around 30km from Chapra."

Mondal said he and the others never told Raha that the children had been bitten by insects. "Rather, we told him that they had been bitten by a snake," he said.

Amiya Kumar Hati, a former director of the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, said if the anti-venom serum is given to someone who has not suffered a snakebite, "there will usually be no reaction".

"In very rare cases, the serum causes reactions such as a fall in the blood pressure or allergic manifestations. These are possible side effects of the serum, which can occur irrespective of whether the patient has been bitten by a snake or not," he said.

The children were wheeled into the district hospital at 2.05am. They were administered the anti-venom serum at the hospital, but two of them died around 4.30am.

A doctor at the hospital who did not wish to be named said by the time the serum was given, it was too late as the patients were children and snake venom was usually neurotoxic and needed swift treatment.

Sudip Sarkar, the deputy chief medical officer of health of Nadia and acting superintendent of the district hospital, said: "Doctors have told me the children died of snakebite. The cause of death in hospital documents is snakebite."

Sarkar said it was "odd" that the doctor at the block hospital did not administer the anti-venom serum, adding that he would investigate the matter.

Shamirul, the third child to be bitten by the snake, was shifted to Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital in Kalyani this morning after his condition deteriorated.