Train food not to blame for students’ illness: railway officials

KOLKATA - The food served in the Ernakulam-Guwahati Express was not responsible for the illness of 39 college girls travelling on the train, as the students were carrying their own food also and also drank water at Chennai station, a railway official said Friday.

At least 39 third-year geography honours students of Bijoy Krishna Girls College in Howrah district who went to south India on an educational tour, allegedly suffered from diarrhoea-like symptoms after having food on their way back. The group returned to Howrah Thursday.

A senior official of the South-Eastern Railway said they sent their medical team to check the health condition of the girls and also enquire why they suffered a problem after having railway food.

“But we found out that those girls also consumed their own food that they were carrying with them,” the official, in charge of food quality monitoring, told IANS. The girl also filled their water bottles from the platform at the Chennai railway station, she added.

According to the official, the railway also checked the food served to the girls, but found that all other passengers who too ate the food prepared in the train’s pantry car were fine.

“If the quality of food was bad, other passengers would have also suffered the same problem. But there was no such thing reported to us,” the official said.

According to sources, Government Railway Police (GRP) also questioned the pantry car manager of the train, Anilesh Yadav, after the students lodged complaints.