The family of a 10-year-old girl who died after eating a cake ordered online in Punjab has alleged the health department did not help them at all. The first information report (FIR) was also filed five days after she died, her family said.
The girl had celebrated her birthday on March 24, and died hours later after the family had gone to bed. She had also vomited the cake before and struggled to breathe before she died, her family has said. Others in the family who ate the cake had also fallen sick.
The incident was picked up by local media, and it came to national attention only on Saturday.
Her grandfather, Harbhanj Lal, told NDTV the lack of alertness on the part of the health department was disturbing.
“The health department officer refused to take the sample of the cake that we had ordered. The officer insisted they will take samples only from the shop where the cake was baked,” Mr Lal told NDTV.
The family said the name of the bakery in the bill and the actual shop were different, indicating it could have been a fly-by-night cloud kitchen, a concept that is gaining currency due to its flexible, lightweight nature of operations.
Independent kitchens would make foods in usually one-room setups to take online delivery orders, and package the foods well as from a big place.
“We are also monitoring this concept of cloud kitchen because the name of the bakery kept changing in Zomato,” Patiala Superintendent of Police Sarfaraz Alam said.
A health officer said the girl’s family visited him on Thursday. “I told them to file a formal complaint with the police and with the health department. Food teams were instructed to visit the house and collect samples of the cake,” the officer said, news agency PTI reported.
In visuals of the birthday celebrations, the girl, Manvi, was seen cutting the cake and celebrating with her family, just hours before her death.
The family has alleged that the chocolate cake, ordered from ‘Cake Kanha’, contained some poisonous substance.