Five detained after 11 die of suspected food poisoning in India

Dec. 15 (UPI) — Five people have been arrested in India after 11 people died and more than 90 worshippers were hospitalized from suspected food poisoning of rice made with tomatoes.

About 200 devotees had gathered Friday for a foundation stone laying ceremony for construction of the Maramma temple at Sulivadi village in the Chamarajanagar district to the south of Karnataka state, the Indian Express reported.

“Following the event the ‘prasad’ was distributed,” Dharmender Kumar Meena, police superintendent of Chamarajanagar district, told CNN. “People started vomiting shortly after.”

Some congregants said that the food smelled of kerosene.

Samples of the vegetable rice have been sent to a lab for testing, Meena said.

Two children died and 29 of those hospitalized are a critical condition, B.B. Cauvery, head of the Chamarajanagar district, told CNN.

“Most of them are showing symptoms of nausea and dehydration,” she said.

The Karnataka state government will pay $7,000 each to the next of the kin of the deceased.

Five peeple were detained, two of whom are from the temple management and three from the village, police said.

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