A day after the death of a youngster who had been on ventilator support at a private hospital in Kakkanad, there was no confirmation of food poisoning being a potential cause as was being widely perceived and for which the police had also registered a case against the restaurant from where the victim had food before falling ill last week.
Rahul D. Nair, 22, of Pala, who had been on ventilator support since Sunday after he was rushed in with cardiac arrest died on Wednesday at 2.50 p.m. He had reportedly fallen ill after consuming shawarma from the restaurant at Mavelipuram in Kakkanad. The restaurant has since been shut down by the health wing of the Thrikkakara municipality.
“Though the post-mortem was conducted on Thursday, we will have to wait for the chemical analysis report and pathology test results. Only after consulting medical experts with those reports could we proceed any further and decide on whether to bring about changes in the sections invoked in the case,” said Thrikkakara police sources.
The Thrikkakara police had booked the restaurant owner under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 284 (dealing with any poisonous substance so as to endanger human life) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide).
Food Safety officials are waiting for the test results of food samples collected from the restaurant as also the results of the blood culture test of the victim before proceeding further. Though three other customers of the same restaurant had reported that they too had health issues after having food from there, they did not have shawarma and had recovered since then.
Meanwhile, the Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA) has petitioned the police that the case against the restaurant was premature since there was no evidence as yet pointing at food poisoning as the cause of death. The police have reportedly assured the association that the case will be dropped if there was no conclusive evidence.
The association pointed out that the restaurant had served around 250 customers on the said day and not one person had fallen ill. Also, the victim was admitted only last Sunday though he had food from the restaurant last Wednesday.
“Since he had had food for four days in between before getting admitted, what suggests that the food from the restaurant caused his illness. Besides, he had ordered the food through a food aggregator, and there is no clarity on when he actually consumed it. It is a sad state of affairs that eateries are being shut down arbitrarily on the charge of food poisoning,” said Manoharan T.J., district president, KHRA.
