Mid-day meal tragedy: Nitish vows to punish the guilty, slams opposition

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday spoke on the mid-day meal tragedy and the politics that has been revolving around it. Nitish attacked the critics for saying that he kept mum on mid-day meal tragedy, and said it was his ill-health that prevented him from visiting Chhapra.

I could not visit Chappra because of my ill-health and my victims has been used to target me, said Nitish.

The state government has taken several steps after mid day meal tragedy in a school in Saran district. My government has acted in the case and the response time in the mid day meal tragedy was the quickest possible, CM added.

Nitish said he was 'deeply saddened by the incident' and had been 'monitoring the situation constantly'. Our Senior state officials took immediate steps and the victims were rushed to Patna. But some of the unfortunately died.

This is a very shocking incident, said Niish said further adding that such a tragic incident cannot take place just by coincidence.

'How can someone have enmity with children?' he asked.

Promising a fair judgemnet Nitish said that school principal is under police custody and all aspects will be probed. SIT is probing this case and the truth will soon come out, Nitish said further.

"The children had alerted many times about the quality of food. We will probe why warnings were not heeded to," Nitish said. "The quantity of pesticide was so much that it indicates something," he said further, hinting at a conspiracy.

Mid-day meal scheme is a Central scheme and needs better monitoring, said Nitish and demanded for more cooks and better infrastructure for running mid-day meal scheme.

Nitish did not name the BJP but hit out at other political parties, asking "how could someone call a bandh when they should be helping the victims?" Nitish also that demanding CBI probe in every incident has become a fashion nowadays.

The violent protests in the village and blockade of roads leading to it were very surprising, said Nitish and added that he is aware of his responsibilities and SIT investigations will soon reveal the truth and whoever is responsible will be punished.