Nearly 60 people fell sick after eating Ram Navami‘prasad’ (consecrated offering) in BengaluruRural district on Sunday, news agency PTI reported, quoting officials.
Around 400 people had eaten the prasad on Saturday. Soon after, many of them started experiencing stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhoea-like symptoms. They were taken to hospital in the early hours of Sunday, the report mentioned.
All patients out of danger, says Health Officer
“Sixty people developed illness in the wee hours of Sunday. After treatment, all of them are out of danger,” Bengaluru Rural District Health Officer (DHO) Lakka Krishna Reddy told reporters in Devanahalli.
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About 46 people were admitted to the Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Devanahalli, while the others were shifted to a private hospital, the report added.
Samples sent for testing
Senior health officials reached the spot after getting the information and collected samples of the temple ‘prasad’ for testing at the Forensic Science Laboratory to find out the exact cause of the incident.
Similar incident reported in Odisha
In a separate incident on March 18, around 120 people, including 40 children and women, fell ill after eating prasad that allegedly had a dead snake in it during a religious event at a temple in Odisha’s Nuagaon village under Pattamundai police limits on Wednesday night, according to a report by The New Indian Express.
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The incident came to light when some devotees, who were eating the prasad made of rice and dalma, noticed a dead snake in the food and panicked. The meal had been prepared by villagers for about 400 people as part of a ‘Bhagabata Katha’ programme at the local temple. Locals believe the snake may have accidentally fallen into the cooking vessel and gone unnoticed, the report noted.
“It was only during serving that some people spotted the dead snake in the dalma,” TNIE quoted Bibhuti Das, a villager, as saying. |
