Publicity: 

The parents in Gandaman village in Bihar State are poor and uneducated but like parents anywhere they dream of a better life for their children. So, as they toil in the fields, living hand to mouth they send their kids to school in the hope they'll learn and find a path out of grinding poverty and deprivation.

But on one terrible day in July, going to school cost them their lives.

Twenty-three children - none older than 10 - died after eating their school lunch, a meal provided under a nationwide government program every school day to 120 million.

How could such a thing happen?

Investigators ordered analysis of the food and quickly discovered that it was tainted with a cheap and readily available pesticide. Was that a result of gross negligence or was it - as some locals believe - a deliberate, calculated act?

As the rumours and recriminations flew parents grieved and villagers rioted in anger and despair.

Foreign Correspondent's Mary Ann Jolley travels to the scene of the tragedy to sort the facts from the fiction in this perplexing and disturbing case.

"That day (the principal) kept a stick and forced all the children to have the food. She said ‘eat it otherwise I will beat you'." RANJEET brother of dead boy.

The school principal is now in custody facing charges of murder and conspiracy - but is she culpable or a convenient scapegoat? Foreign Correspondent gains access to the police operation and assesses the evidence.

We talk to parents about their unbearable loss.

"I feel I shouldn't have sent them to school that day. They would have been alive." CHANDA DEVI Mother of 7 year old Prahlad & 10 year old Rahul

And we travel to bustling Mumbai to talk to India's chemical king - Rajju Shroff - who heads up Indian pesticide giant United Phosphorous, and ask why is it that India continues to use a product considered gravely hazardous by the World Health Organisation and banned in many countries including Australia.

"I say firmly and clearly that if you prove that (the pesticide) ‘monocrotophos' is there in the food, I'll close down my factory." RAJJU SHROFF, CEO United Phosphorus.

Preparation of school meals

Music

00:00

Patna kitchen. Vats of cooking

JOLLEY: It's six in the morning and across India's major cities a military style operation is in full swing.

07:16

Music

00:15

JOLLEY:  In this industrial kitchen in the far-flung, north-eastern city of Patna, lunch is being prepared for 25,000 primary school children.

00:18

Jolley with Lakshmanan

R. LAKSHMANAN: "The kitchen at present here it serves around 290 schools".

00:29

Patna kitchen. Vats of cooking

JOLLEY: In cities like Patna they're pre-cooked, packed, loaded into vans and shuffled off to schools.

00:34

R. LAKSHMANAN: "The school midday meal program started in Bihar in the year 2005. As of now we are covering approximately 70,000 schools".

00:44

Food loaded into vans and transported to schools

JOLLEY: Ten years ago India's Supreme Court decreed in a landmark ruling that every child in every government primary school should receive a prepared midday meal.

00:52

Music

01:03

Primary school

JOLLEY:  So each and every school day 120 million Indian children are served a school lunch.

01:11

Music

01:18

Teacher dispenses plates for children

JOLLEY: And for children in Bihar, one of the most underprivileged corners of this hugely populated country, it could very well be their only meal of the day.

01:21

R. LAKSHMANAN: "This scheme to a certain extent addresses the problem of malnutrition

01:31

Lakshmanan. Super:
R. Lakshmanan
Bihar Meal Scheme

and this scheme has contributed to improvements in the attendance of kids in schools and in terms of retention of kids in the schools".

01:35

Meal Scheme dispenses lunches/ Teachers then students eat

JOLLEY: It's a smooth routine at this central Patna school. The teachers conduct a required taste test, then lunch is served and the children tuck in.

01:41

In a society plagued by caste discrimination, the lunch is a great leveller. Children from all castes eat together.

01:54

School boy 1

CHILD 1: "It's very tasty".

02:05

School boy 2

CHILD 2: "We have a lot of variety - on Monday we get dal, rice and vegetables, on Tuesday we get vegetables and rice".

02:07

Female teacher

TEACHER: "They wait for the food with excitement and the day the food is not delivered they stay hungry".

02:15

Students in school yard

JOLLEY: It's the world's largest public food program that aims to fight hunger and malnutrition. It should be the pride of the nation, but instead many Indians have had their faith in the program shattered. They're asking why a program set up to save children's lives, inexplicably and in one sitting, killed 23.

02:20

Music

02:45

Ambulances in Patna streets. Night.

FX: Siren

02:52

JOLLEY: It's a few minutes after midnight on Wednesday, July 17 this year. Ambulances race through the city streets, making their way to the Patna Medical Centre Hospital.

02:55

Ambulance with children arrives at hospital

And soon these heart-breaking images of desperately ill children would race around the world.

03:08

By the time they'd arrived here from their remote village for diagnosis and treatment it would be twelve hours since they ate their school lunch and became dangerously ill.

03:18

DR NIGAM PRAKASH NARAIN: "In the history of my medical service I think this was one of the most hair-raising experiences for me.

03:32

Dr Narain. Super:
Dr Nigam Prakash Narain
Patna Hospital

In fact, never ever I remember that I would... would have met so many children and in such a situation that they were going to die immediately, that kind of situation.

03:39

Ill children being carried into hospital

So it was pathetic for me and in fact, four of them I received dead then and there".

03:54

Mantu being carried into hospital by father. Freeze frame

JOLLEY: This critically ill boy, Mantu, whose father is carrying him into the hospital, has no idea his little brother, Ashu, died on the way.

04:07

Amid these chaotic scenes questions were being asked and answers demanded. What was this school lunch fatal? How did it happen and who was responsible?

04:20

Kumar. Super:
Superintendent Sujit Kumar
Bihar Police

SUPERINTENDENT SUJIT KUMAR: "We were sure that something wrong has happened in the food - the cooking part of it - and at that stage it was not possible for us to make sure what had happened.

04:33

Children in hospital ward

Is it a conspiracy, is it an accident? We were making sure that first of all proper treatment was given to these kids".

04:44

JOLLEY: Mystery surrounds the incident. Rumour and conspiracy theories abound.

04:54

05:01

Elephant on road/Man on bullock

To discover what we can about the incident that played out so swiftly and tragically,

05:08

Jolley in car to Gandaman

we head off to the remote village of Gandaman - a three hour drive from Patna. It's only 100 kilometres away, but this is Bihar and the roads are seriously neglected and in parts just a potholed track.

05:17

Meeting with Chanda

In Gandaman, we meet Chanda Devi, older than her years and devastated by her loss.

05:34

Chanda

CHANDA DEVI: "I remember them every day. As long as I am alive I will always remember them. I have given birth to them, I have fed them my milk, cleaned them, made them eat, slept with them. How can I forget them? I am a mother".

05:44

Chanda's home

JOLLEY: At 35, Chanda Devi has given birth to twelve children. Her family knows what it's like to go hungry, but that's nothing compared to the heartbreak they're now enduring.

06:08

Chanda

CHANDA DEVI: "I miss Prahlad a lot".

JOLLEY: "Prahlad?"

06:24

Photo of Prahlad and Rahul

CHANDA DEVI: "Prahlad was loved by all.

06:31

Chanda

He was brought up with love by his elder brother".

06:35

Photo of Prahlad and siblings

JOLLEY: She's mourning not just the death of one child, but two. Seven year old Prahlad was the baby of the family and his ten year old brother, Rahul, was a twin to sister

06:38

Roshni

Roshni. Neither of the boys wanted to go to school that day.

06:49

Chanda

CHANDA DEVI: "I told them no, take a bath, get ready, eat your food and to go school. I told my children if you don't study well, how would you know how to read any address or to use a mobile phone.

06:55

I feel I shouldn't have sent them to school that day. They would both still be alive".

07:09

Abandoned school

JOLLEY: Today the primary school is a ghostly shell. Goats and cows graze where 55 children sat and ate their lunch. Prahlad and Rahul joined the other children some as young as five, none older than ten. The school principal, Meena Devi, was handing out new textbooks as the two cooks prepared the midday meal.

07:19

Jolley at school to camera

"It was here in what was a makeshift kitchen on the veranda of the school building that the midday meal was prepared. It was a soya bean curry. The cook noticed the foul smelling oil and that the food was turning black and went off to the principal to complain".

07:51

Chanda and Harandra

According to Chanda Devi's husband, Harandra, the cook's complaint fell on deaf ears.

08:08

Harandra

HARANDRA DEVI: "The cook went to her and told her the food had turned black. And Madam said, ‘Do the children have to eat good food every day?' She didn't even come out of her class to see the state of the vegetables".

08:16

Ranjeet

RANJEET DEVI: "The children ate food there, then about five minutes later they all started falling down. We learnt that the children had become ill - there was poison in the food".

08:44

Ranjeet on motorbike

Music

09:01

JOLLEY: Fourteen year old Ranjeet's two younger brothers, Ashu and Mantu were among the 55 served the lunch. When he heard children were collapsing, he jumped on his motorbike and rushed to the school. His father held his two brothers on the back of the motorbike as he rode all four of them to the local hospital.

09:07

Music

09:28

RANJEET DEVI: "They were complaining of stomach aches and were throwing up. The bike was covered in vomit.

09:32

Ranjeet

In my mind I didn't want my brothers to suffer, I didn't want them to die".

09:43

Children in hospital

JOLLEY: Despite their condition, Ranjeet says his brothers managed to tell him the school principal insisted they eat the foul smelling food.

09:52

RANJEET DEVI: "That day Madam forced all the children to eat the food. She said, ‘Eat it or I will hit you with a stick'".

10:03

School Principal, Meena Devi photo

JOLLEY: Only one small image of the school principal, Meena Devi, is in public circulation..

10:18

Children in hospital

It's claimed she failed to carry out the obligatory taste test on the food. But other evidence is emerging that at the very least suggests serious negligence and at worst, according to some, a pre-mediated plan to cause harm

10:27

Binod

BINOD MAHTO: "Meena Devi has done this".

10:47

Binod with wife and child

JOLLEY: Binod Mahto and his wife Bucchi Devi lost three of their four children that day. Two daughters - nine and seven - and a five year old son.

10:51

BINOD MAHTO: "I am not Hanuman, the Hindu God. I can not tear open my chest to show how tortured I am.

11:04

Binod

I want her and her whole family to be hanged. I am not the only one who has lost children - 23 children have died".

11:11

Chanda

CHANDA DEVI: "Meena Devi should be punished. Her children should be killed in front of her eyes. Meena Devi should suffer and feel the pain we are feeling".

11:20

Chanda cooking

JOLLEY: Chanda Devi and her family also hold the school principal responsible.

11:32

CHANDA DEVI: "She will realise the pain of losing children. We are poor, we have nothing except love and affection for our children.

11:40

Chanda

We suffered hardship in bringing up our children. Once they were big enough she poisoned and killed them".

11:54

Chanda's children eating

SUPERINTENDENT SUJIT KUMAR: "Small kids dying from eating a government meal...

11:59

Kumar

there is a lot of anger".

12:06

Jolley with Kumar in office

JOLLEY: It's up to this man to get to the bottom of it all. Superintendent Kumar heads the Gandaman investigation.

12:08

Lab montage

Among his first tasks, an authoritative analysis of the food that killed the children. Samples taken from the school lunch were sent to Patna's government laboratory. A lethal ingredient was identified - a poison - Monocrotophos.

12:18

Monocrotophos

a poison - Monocrotophos.

12:35

SUPERINTENDENT KUMAR: "In 48 hours we were told that

12:41

monocrotophos, which is an organophosphorus pesticide that is being used in India to kill pests - especially on sugar cane - was found in the food sample".

12:43

Cane field. Man spraying pesticide

JOLLEY: Monocrotophos is widely used by farmers in India. It's a cheap and effective pesticide and in this part of Bihar where sugar cane grows well, it's in demand. Investigators descended on this small sugar cane farm owned by Meena Devi's family.

SUPERINTENDENT KUMAR: "During our investigation we have come to know that her husband,

13:00

Arjun Rai, who is a farmer, he has collected around 500 mls of monocrotophos from a sugar mill that is not very far from the village. So monocrotophos was present in the house - that part we have established in our investigation. Now was that deliberately taken to the school or was it accidentally taken into the school?

13:25

Jolley with Kumar

We recovered a bottle from the school that was empty. Traces of the chemical were found in that bottle".

JOLLEY: Investigators have learned that a schoolgirl was sent to the principal's

13:48

Kumar with sample of monocrotophos

home to collect cooking oil for the lunch. They're examining whether or not she mistook the farming family's monocrotophos for the cooking oil.

13:59

SUPERINTENDENT KUMAR: "In this part of the world you get the food cooked in mustard oil - and this I believe has a strong resemblance to monocrotophos. Maybe this was used as a medium to cook the entire food".

JOLLEY: "What was

14:09

the concentration of the pesticide in the food?"

SUPERINTENDENT KUMAR: "It was very high.

14:24

It was around 52 times higher than the permissible limit. And that's why the results were so fatal".

14:29

Chopper takes off. Shroff in chopper

14:35

JOLLEY: As local police try to establish precisely how monocrotophos got into the lunches and who was responsible, international authorities wonder why the pesticide continues to be used in India, let alone on such a widespread scale.

14:45

MR SHROFF: "We feel monocrotophos is farmer friendly, very economical, very effective

15:02

Shroff

and the stories about harmful effects are all highly exaggerated because though it is toxic, according to us it's very safe".

15:09

Aerials/Shroff in chopper

JOLLEY: Pesticides are big business - a business that's made Rajju Shroff a very wealthy man. He doesn't have to worry about the Mumbai traffic on his morning commute to the United Phosphorous plant, India's biggest producer of monocrotophos.

15:19

United Phosphorous plant

MR SHROFF: "When farmers use it they dilute it - but if you want to

15:39

Shroff

commit suicide, yes, you open the bottle and drink - then you need only three or four spoons".

15644

Inside chemical plant

JOLLEY: What Rajju Shroff claims is safe, the World Health Organisation labels highly hazardous. It says that less than a teaspoon of the pesticide can kill and it's easily absorbed through the skin. It's environmentally damaging and is a long-lingering hazard to wildlife.

15:51

A few years ago the W.H.O. urged India to follow the lead of many other countries including the United States, various European nations, China and Australia and ban monocrotophos.

16:17

Shroff walking inside chemical plant

Rajju Shroff played a key role in making sure the Indian Government imposed no such ban - he's now taking a keen interest in the Gandaman case.

MR SHROFF: "I can repeat firmly and clearly

16:33

Shroff. Super:
Rajju Shroff
United Phosphorus

that if you prove that monocrotophos is there in this food, I'll close down my factory".

16:44

Bottling monocrotophos

JOLLEY: He claims the lab analysis of the food and the police investigation into the incident are deeply flawed.

16:52

MR SHROFF: "It's totally bogus. Where is the report? They are hiding it... no report. We sent our own scientist to the forensic laboratory - they said, run away... get out!

17:03

Shroff

Indian forensic laboratories, particularly the police department, are famous for manipulating and collecting money and bribes".

17:15

Bullock driver and dray/Village

Music

17:25

Jolley at principal's house

JOLLEY: "This is the house of the school principal, Meena Devi, who abandoned the sick children and went into hiding. Here on the front door a district magistrate has posted a summons for her to appear in court. It was a week before she was arrested".

17:36

Meena Devi remains in custody and is now facing a criminal charge of negligence and civil charges of murder and conspiracy to murder that have been brought by the father of a dead child.

17:50

Man walks with children

MANOJ KUMAR: "Whenever we feed kids, we want them to eat two or three extra bites.

18:07

Kumar

Your kids, my kids, whenever they leave food on their plate we say finish it. Anyone can say so, Meena Devi would also have said the same thing. It does not mean that Meena Devi added poison and said eat the poison.

18:12

Principal's house

Meena Devi was a gentle and good-natured woman. She got on well with everyone".

18:25

Jolley with Kumar on street

JOLLEY: Manoj Kumar, Meena Devi's nephew and next door neighbour, doesn't believe for a moment that his aunt could or would harm the children.

MANOJ KUMAR: "She also has two kids.

18:32

Kumar

What mother would want to poison and kill her kids who she is bringing up with love and affection. No one would want it.

18:45

Abandoned school

If it is negligence on the part of Meena Devi, then it is negligence on the part of the government as well. When the school does not have a kitchen, why was cooking introduced here? There is no kitchen - no place to keep provisions. This incident wouldn't have occurred if the government had not allowed this".

18:57

Rupesh in car

Music

19:22

JOLLEY: The government run school lunch program is vast, complex and uneven. Inspectors like Rupesh try to ensure the operation in his state runs as best it can.

19:29

Rupesh visits school

19:48

He's an advisor to the Commissioners of the Supreme Court and audits Bihar's midday meal scheme. Today he's visiting a school on the outskirts of the capital, Patna. Rupesh has been sounding the alarm for some time.

19:55

Rupesh talks to girl cooking

MR RUPESH: "We have been writing regularly to the government about the infrastructure monitoring as per the orders of the Supreme Court. But in spite of this, the government does not take action.

20:14

Rupesh. Super:
Mr Rupesh
Supreme Court Advisor

What the government needs to do is boost the infrastructure and strengthen the system".

20:39

Photos. Rupesh at Gandaman school

JOLLEY: Rupesh has investigated the Gandaman tragedy and while he's concluded the school principal was negligent, he's also highly critical of Bihar Government.

20:46

Rupesh

MR RUPESH: "This incident has happened at just one school - but it could happen at other schools as well".

20:57

Nitish Kumar at public forum

Music

21:05

JOLLEY: Instead of reviewing its processes the state government went on an astonishing attack. Bihar's Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, seen here at his weekly public forum, declared the tragedy a political conspiracy aimed at discrediting the school lunch program. He claims the poisoning was deliberate, organised by enemies of his government and carried out by Meena Devi.

21:10

MR RUPESH: "The state has committed a criminal act and so the state wants to shift focus on to one person and this is their strategy to get rid of this incident.

21:39

As of now we don't have evidence to conclude that this was a political game, but the way all political parties have behaved is shameful".

21:51

Party at hospital

Music

22:11

JOLLEY: Three weeks on from the poisoning, the Bihar Government has turned discharge day for the surviving children into a party - there's balloons, speeches and well wishing. It's a calculated PR attempt to win back public support.

22:17

22:33

Photo. Mantu being carried into hospital

Mantu, the boy seen here being carried into the hospital by this father is finally going home.

22:37

Mantu preparing to leave hospital/Photo of Ashu

He still doesn't know his younger brother Ashu, died on the night. His mother and father won't break the news until he gets home.

22:44

Harandra and Chanda

HARANDRA DEVI: ‘I am happy though I would have been happier if I was taking two sons home".

22:56

Family farm/Ranjeet working on farm

JOLLEY: Back home waiting for his family to return, eldest son Ranjeet, has had the responsibility of running the family farm.

23:01

Ranjeet plants rice

RANJEET: "I am not able to work properly. Wherever I used to go, my brothers went with me. Now where can I go?"

23:13

Ducks

Music

23:24

Ranjeet beside stream

JOLLEY: He also had a responsibility no 14 year old should have to undertake, burying his youngest brother.

23:29

School children's graves at school

Music

23:36

Ranjeet at school

JOLLEY:  Mounds of earth surround the school. Beneath them the bodies of many of the victims of the poisoning. Ashu is among them.

23:53

RANJEET: "I came here and buried Ashu with my own hands.

233:53

Music

23:59

RANJEET:  It would have been wonderful if both my brothers were coming back".

24:03

Ambulance brings Mantu home

JOLLEY: It's been a long wait for Ranjeet, but finally the ambulance that's carried his brother and parents back from Patna is in his sights.

24:10

It's a homecoming of emotional extremes as Mantu is told for the first time that Ashu is dead.

24:31

Harandra

HARANDRA DEVI: "He was crying to see the sad conditions at home. He was looking for his brother".

24:39

Mantu wails

JOLLEY: For the poor, desperately deprived people of Gandaman, Bihar - with so little to sustain them - family is everything. And for so many families who lost children in this extraordinary tragedy the pain is unimaginable. They crave answers and hope for justice - but there's no guarantee they'll get either.

24:45

Chanda hands kerosene lamb

CHANDA DEVI: "They know that we are from the lower castes and so even if our children die,

25:21

Chanda

no one will stand up and say anything. We will at the most, just cry about it".

25:28

Children's grave

Music

25:32

Reporter: Mary Ann Jolley
Camera: Aaron Hollett
Editor: Nicholas Brenner
India producer: Savitri Choudhury
Producer: Ian Altschwager

25:43