Mid-day meal tragedy: Absconding school principal arrested

Chhapra/Patna: Eight days after the mid-day meal tragedy which claimed the lives of 23 children, police on Wednesday arrested the absconding school principal and has begun interrogating her. "We arrested her from Chhapra town," Saran district superintendent of police and head of the special investigation team Sujeet Kumar said. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar confirmed the arrest of the principal, Meena Devi. "The investigation is on. The principal of the school is in police custody. We will probe the incident from all possible angles," Kumar told reporters in Patna. State Police chief Abhyanand who was present at the CM`s press meet said the absconding principal of Dharmasati Gandaman primary school in Chhapra in Saran district has been arrested and she did not surrender. He, however, refused to disclose the location from where she was arrested and other details saying these were matters of investigation. Meena Devi was held even as a notice declaring her as a proclaimed offender was pasted at her Chhapra home.

The notice asked Meena Devi to present herself before the police immediately failing which the process of attachment of her property will start, the SP said. Earlier in the day, she had filed an anticipatory bail application in the court of CJM Chhapra which did not provide her any instant relief. An FIR had been lodged against Meena Devi with Mashrakh police station in the mid-day meal case and she had been absconding since the incident on July 17 along with her husband, said to the supplier of the food material used on that day. The FIR has been registered under 302 (murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) among others, the DGP said. A probe report by Saran Commissioner Shashi Shekhar Sharma and DIG Vinod Kumar submitted to the government had found the principal responsible for the tragedy. PTI