Initial indications were that the food was contaminated by an organophosphate, a class of chemicals commonly found in insecticides. A local government administrator commented "It appears to be a case of<unk>  but we will have to wait for forensic reports ... Had it been a case of natural food<unk> , so many children would not have died." Dr Amar Kant Jha, superintendent of Patna Medical College and Hospital in Patna, said that the survivors were emitting toxic vapours, which led his team to suspect almost immediately that they had been poisoned with an organophosphate. Late on 17 July, officials stated that they believed the cooking oil had been placed in a container formerly used to store insecticides. According to state officials, the<unk> 's headmistress had bought the cooking oil used in the food from a grocery store owned by her husband. On 20 July police said that a forensic report confirmed the cooking oil contained "very toxic" levels of monocrotophos, an agricultural pesticide.
Bihar school meal poisoning incident
Japan Air Lines food poisoning incident
Morinaga Milk arsenic poisoning incident
Arsenic poisoning cases
Mental illness in fly-in fly-out workers
Camelford water pollution incident
Lists of poisonings
United States military veteran suicide