Patna: A local court in Bihar on Monday sentenced a primary school principal to 17 years in prison over the death of 23 children.
The children died after eating a midday meal at the school three years ago.
The court of additional district judge (II) at Chapra, Vijay Anand Tiwari, delivered this judgement to school principal Meena Devi, terming it as the “rarest of rare cases”.
She was found guilty under two different sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Witnesses said soon after hearing the judgement, the school principal broke down and started crying bitterly in court.
The judgement comes some three years after the incident had drawn the attention of local and international media.
During the trial, a total of 40 witnesses out of a total 65 appeared for the state. They included two school cooks, 22 villagers, nine doctors and nine officials of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed the case.
Earlier on August 24, the principal had been convicted by the court for culpable homicide “not amounting to murder”. The court though had absolved her of the charges of murder, attempts to murder and criminal conspiracy. The court also acquitted her husband Arjun Rai in the case.
A total of 23 children had died after eating the poisonous midday meal at a primary school at Dharmasti-Gandaman village located under Masrak block in Saran district on July 16, 2013. Reports said altogether 80 children who had attended school on the fateful day had been served soyabean curry and rice as midday meal. While around a dozen children died in the school itself, the rest died during treatment in local hospital.
