September 14 was just another day for Rama Devi, a Class X student of the Telangana government’s Ashram school for Scheduled Tribe girls in Mannanur, located 140 kilometres south of Hyderabad, in Nagarkurnool district. In the evening, she sat down to dinner in the hostel mess. The menu featured the typical fare of the area: rice, ivy gourd curry, and sambar. Soon, she got an excruciatingly painful stomach ache.
Yellamma, the night guard for the residential school, rushed to the girl writhing in pain. But even before she could do anything, the student collapsed on the veranda outside the mess hall. Headmistress-cum-hostel welfare officer Mangamma was not available on campus, and all the teachers had left after duty hours. Yellamma wasted no time taking Rama to a government hospital 200 metres away.
What initially appeared as an isolated incident soon escalated into a full-blown crisis, as student after student reported sick. Passers-by watched in disbelief as 216 of the 470 hostel inmates were rushed to hospital. Of those, 20 were admitted to the intensive care unit of the government hospital at Achampet, around 16 km away.
