Some unidentified miscreants mixed rat poison in the water tank of Madrassa Chacha Nehru in Aligarh that houses 4000 children. The institution is run by Al Noor Charitable Society, headed by Salma Ansari, wife of former Vice President Hamid Ansari.
But a possible mishap was averted as one of the inmates saw the miscreants in suspicious circumstances and informed the madrassa authorities at once.
Salma Ansari, who was shocked to hear about the incident, told TOI that she had immediately asked the madrassa warden to file a complaint with the police. In the aftermath, they have plans to install CCTV cameras on the premises of the institution run by the 18-year-old charitable trust, she added.
The Police have lodged an FIR under relevant sections of IPC involving charges of causing hurt by means of poison and criminal intimidation. They are on the lookout for the culprits, according to TOI report.
Aligarh's senior superintendent of police Rajesh Pandey said that fortunately a student spotted the miscreants and alerted the warden. Following this, the water samples were collected and they will be sent to forensic science laboratory (FSL) for tests.
Muhammad Afzal, one of the students, spotted two unknown persons mixing some tablets in the tank when he went there to drink water, said Junaid Siddiqui, the madrassa warden.
When Afzal asked them what they were doing, one of the miscreants, who was sitting on the fence with a country-made pistol threatened him to keep quiet. As soon as the suspects fled from the scene, the student picked up the wrapper of the rat poison packet and rushed to alert the warden.
The water supply area was isolated and the students were asked to drink water from other tanks on the campus, the warden told TOI.
The chief medical officer from Aligarh's J N Medical College, Dr Ehtisham Ahmad said that the rat poison will not be fatal provided it is mixed with an anticoagulant. It could have only made the students sick. He also explained that it would also depend on the quality of the rat poison used.
