3-Yr-Old Girl Dies After Falling Into Mid-Day Meal Container in UP

The school’s principal, Santosh Kumar Yadav, has been suspended on the directives of the District Magistrate.

Image used for representational image.

(Photo Courtesy: Reuters)

A three-year-old girl has succumbed to burns after falling into a container of a freshly-cooked mid-day meal at a government primary school in Rampur Atari village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur, officials said on Tuesday, 4 February.

"Anchal (3), who was not enrolled in the school, used to go there with here brothers Ganesh and Himanshul, who are students of Classes 2 and 5 respectively. On Monday, at about 12 noon, when mid-day meal was ready and students gathered there to have it, the girl lost her balance due to the rush and fell into a big utensil of hot freshly-cooked vegetable," District Magistrate Sushil Kumar Patel said.

“At the time of incident, the cook was not there. As the students raised an alarm, a teacher, Narendra Kumar Verma, picked the girl out of the big vessel. She was rushed to a private hospital with 80 percent burns and later, to a government hospital, where she died on Monday evening at about 7 pm,” Patel said.

The school's principal, Santosh Kumar Yadav, has been suspended on the directives of the DM, Basic Siksha Adhikari (BSA) Virendra Kumar Singh said.

"There are 172 students and six cooks for the school. An FIR has been registered against all six cooks at the Lalganj police station. A three-member committee has also been formed to probe the incident and it will submit a report in two days," the BSA said.