A dead mouse was found in a mid-day meal served at a government-aided intermediate college in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. 

The meal was for students of classes 6, 7, and 8 and the mouse was found at the bottom of a container of yellow Urad dal. An NGO called Jan Kalyan Sanstha Committee based in a town about 90 kilometres from Muzaffarnagar had prepared the meal.

At least nine children and a teacher fell ill after consuming the food. They were admitted to a nearby hospital and released after an hour.

“As we took the dal with a spoon, we saw a mouse. It was in the bottom of a container of urad dal,” Shivang, a Class 6 student was reported saying by NDTV. Speaking to the media after the incident, Ram Sagar Tripathi, a local education official called it a shocking example of “carelessness”.

He also added that action would be taken against the NGO. For the past couple of months, the Uttar Pradesh government has continuously faced embarrassment over numerous appalling blunders in the execution of their mid-day meal programme.

In August, journalist Pawan Jaiswal was booked for criminal conspiracy after he exposed roti and salt being served as a mid-day meal to children at a school in Mirzapur.

In October, children in a UP school were given rice with turmeric water instead of dal as a mid-day meal. Recently a video surfaced on the internet where a cook was seen adding a litre of milk to a bucket of water to serve 81 children in a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra. The diluted milk was then served to children in half-filled tumblers for consumption.

Also Read: UP School Dilutes 1 Litre Milk With Water To Feed 81 Kids During Mid-Day Meal