Amid reports of people falling ill after eating watermelon, a 15-year-old boy from Chhattisgarh’s Janjjir Chamba district died, while three other children fell ill after eating the fruit, officials said on Monday, news agency PTI reported.
The deceased has been identified as Akhilesh Devar (15) a resident of Budi Dalha village, while the other affected children are Shri Devar (4) of Avarid village, Pintu Devar (12) of Khatola and Hitesh Devar (13) of Kotgarh.
The officials added that the incident occurred in Gorkot village, where the children came to their uncle’s house with their relatives.
“As per preliminary information, the children ate watermelon pieces found in the house on Sunday evening. After a few hours, Akhilesh started vomiting, suffering from diarrhea and breathing difficulties. Similar symptoms were later observed in the other three children as well,” said District Hospital Civil Surgeon Dr S Kujur.
“As their condition deteriorated, the family members took them to the district hospital in ambulances at different times on Monday. However, Akhilesh was declared dead on arrival. The other three children were admitted to the emergency ward here,” he added.
“Possible contamination,” says the doctor.
Dr. Kujur said the watermelon was cut in the morning and consumed several hours later, increasing the possibility of contamination.
“At first glance, the children may have suffered from food poisoning due to consumption of contaminated watermelon. The teenager’s body was sent for post-mortem and viscera samples were kept for forensic examination,” said Kogur. Another home-preserved watermelon was sent to the Food Safety Administration for laboratory testing.”
Officials said the exact cause of death and illness will be known only after forensic and food safety reports are received.
Similar incident in Mumbai
A similar incident was reported in Mumbai After a couple and their teenage daughters became seriously ill After eating watermelon at their home in Bedoni, they died within hours of each other.
Initial investigations and speculation indicated that the cause of death was watermelon that the family had consumed the previous night, following which they suffered severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea in the early hours of April 26 and were taken to a local hospital before being referred to the government-run JJ Hospital where all four died during treatment.
However, a report from the state-run Forensic Science Laboratory submitted to investigators revealed that traces of zinc phosphide, a highly toxic rodenticide, were found in viscera samples taken from all four deceased members of the Docadia family.
