22 Students in Indian School Die of School Lunches

Bihar, India (CNN) --  The principal of an Indian school turns fugitive after 22 students, children between ages 5 to 12, died of eating school lunches. The students consumed rice and potatoes and shortly after vomited while some students caught a fainting spell.  

The headmistress husband is being probed by authorities, according to Chief Suijit Kumar.  The schools cook and students, a total of 25 people remain hospitalized.  CNN-IBN reported that District Magistrate Abhijit Sinha stated "investigation is underway."

The children were poisoned by an insecticide in the food by the cooking oil, that was originally questioned by the cook by source Education Minister P.K. Shahi. 

"The information which has come to me indeed suggests that the headmistress was told by the cook that medium of cooking was not proper, and she suspected the quality of the oil," Shahi said. "But the headmistress rebuked her, and chastised the children, and forced them to continue the meal."

U.S. Health Department officials discussed that an organophosphorus compound was used that is commonly in agriculture in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The high exposure to the sarin like gas, a biological weapon used in warfare can cause side effects of paralysis, seizures, irregular heartbeat and breathing, and even death.

Suspicions of the quality of the cooking oil were denied. The annual $22 billion food program that has been running for a decade, led by the Indian government, feeds more than 100 million children.  It serves children between ages 5 to 12 in around 73,000 elementary schools.  The government standards on the distributing wheat and rice meals vary by region.  Now, the head of the school meal program is held accountable.  The free food program provides one hot meal a day to children in school, a goal to prevent malnutrition. 

After the incident, a group of men attacked the distributing food organization Ekta Shakti Foundation, a distributing food organization that supplies 1,200 local lunches in the Chhapra district of Patna. The kitchen decided to cease the program after the deaths of the school children.

Reetika Khera of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi stated "In the southern part of the country, children get not only good quality food, they also get very nutritious food, but this is not the case in Bihar."