'Hotel food' makes 9 MP girls sick on way home from Attari

LUDHIANA: Nine girls who fell sick aboard a train to their home state Madhya Pradesh from Amritsar were hospitalised here with complaints of vomiting and giddiness, which indicate food poisoning. Their contingent of 122 had visited the Pakistan border as part of the MP government's 'Maa Tujhe Pranam' patriotic campaign. Packed food from an Amritsar hotel is being blamed for their condition.
The authorities at the civil hospital here claimed that the students under their care were stable. Manish Soni, block coordinator the sports department, said: "We had brought 122 girls in two groups from Madhya Pradesh along with 14 officials for a five-day tour to the Attari-Wagah border and other areas of Amritsar, and they were heading home on Wednesday."
The tour coordinator said the students had boarded the train to Bhopal at 8.50am from Amritsar, carrying packed food, including rice, curd, potato, vegetables and pickles from a city hotel. He suggested at 11am, the organisers had served this food to the students and within 10 minutes, the students had reported anxiety, breathlessness, vomiting, and fainting. The organisers alerted the railway police on a helpline and moved them to hospital. He said: "After that, the officials came to know about the spoilt rice, which we disposed of."
A student whose friends were in hospital claimed that they had travelled to Punjab under Madhya Pradesh's 'Maa Tujhe Pranam' campaign of motivating the students to join the Army and the BSF. The students were aged between 16 and 24 and they were from NCC, NSS, Scouts and Guides programmes in Rajgarh, Singrauli, Betul, Dhar, Bhopal in MP. They had arrived in Amritsar on June 17.
Another student, Sunita Bhawar, said: "On way home from our last visit to the Wagah border, 10-15 of us ate spoilt rice and started vomiting. Nine of us got very sick and while some others with signs of vomiting boarded the train after recovering with medicine.
Civil hospital's acting senior medical officer Dr Harinder Sood confirmed that: "Nine students had food poisoning, so we administered them fluid and injectable medicines. All the patients are stable, but none has been discharged yet. They are aged between 16 and 20."