印度學校食物中毒致23名學生死亡 校長夫婦被控謀殺大綱

A school headteacher and her husband have been charged with murder after 23 children died from eating pesticide-contaminated lunches in July at the school in eastern India, police said on Tuesday.

The trial of Meena Devi and her husband was expected to begin soon, said police officer Varun Kumar Sinha. They were arrested and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Investigating police officer Raj Kaushal said the headteacher's husband, politician Arjun Rai, stored pesticide at the school that was for use at his farm. The charge sheet filed in a court in Bihar state on Sunday said the chef cooked with it by mistake.

Both denied the charges and told police there was no deliberate act on their part.

The school's cooks have told authorities that the headteacher controlled the food for the government-provided free daily lunch. One of the cooks told police investigators that the cooking oil appeared different, but that the principal told her to use it anyway.

The children who died were aged between five and 12.

India's midday meal plan is one of the world's biggest school nutrition programmes. State governments have the freedom to decide on menus and timings of the meals, depending on local conditions and availability of food rations. It was first introduced in the 1960s in southern India, where it was seen as an incentive for poor parents to send their children to school.

Although there have been complaints about the quality of the food served and the lack of hygiene, the incident in Bihar appeared to be unprecedented.警方週二稱，印度東部一所學校的校長及其丈夫雙雙被指控謀殺，今年7月該校23名學生因食用被農藥污染的午餐不幸身亡。

警官瓦倫•庫馬爾•辛哈稱，米納•德維校長及其丈夫預計很快將面臨審判。他們已經被逮捕，如果如果指控罪名成立則可能被判死刑。

調查警官拉傑•考沙爾說，校長的丈夫阿爾瓊•拉伊是一名政客，是他把自己農場要用的農藥儲放在了學校。上週日在比哈爾邦法庭提交的控告書上指出，廚師在給學生做午餐過程中誤用了此農藥。

夫妻二人雙雙否認這些指控，並告訴警方此事故絕非二人刻意爲之。

然而，學校廚師已經告訴當局，對於政府發放的學生免費午餐，校長曾一度限制其食物供應量。其中一位還告訴偵查員說，校長曾硬要她使用明顯已變了色的食用油。

事故中死亡兒童的年齡在5—12歲之間。

印度的免費午餐計劃是世界上最大的校園營養計劃之一。各個邦政府根據當地條件以及食物配額自由支配午餐的菜單和時序。此計劃於20世紀60年代開始率先在印度南部實行，一度被看做是政府鼓勵貧困家庭送子女上學的一項激勵政策。

雖然此前有關免費午餐質量以及食品衛生的投訴並不少見，但此次比哈爾邦事件的嚴重程度似乎是前所未有的。