More than three months after the Hanur temple ‘prasada’ poisoning tragedy in which 17 devotees died, the Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), has sought to ‘disprove’ that pesticides laced the prasada.

The CCFI – an NGO which is the apex trade body of agrochemical industry — came out with what it termed as a White Paper to deconstruct the police claim that the pesticide monocrotophos was used in the offering.

CCFI spokesperson S. Ganesan told mediapersons here on Tuesday that the scientific facts brought out in the White Paper strongly contradict the conclusion of the police.

When asked why an organisation was keen on disproving the police theory that was based on reports of various laboratories including the CSIR-affiliated Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) and Forensic Science Laboratory, Mr. Ganesan said they wanted to dispel disinformation about the use of monocrotophos.

Much of the paper is based on media reports and has concluded that 15 bottles of monocrotophos could have killed scores of people given the level of toxicity. It claimed that the police theory and narrative was ‘scientifically absurd’ as the flash point of monocrotophos was 58°C and the cooking temperature of the rice laced with pesticide, was 100°C.

“Monocrotophos vapourises into gas at 58°C and is followed by ignition. ,Hence the rice could not have been cooked as it would have caught fire halfway through the cooking,” the paper states and adds that food poisoning was due to causes other than pesticide. Mr. Ganesan said the laboratory reports have not been made public and suspected the police claims.