NEW DELHI, Jan 28: The Delhi Government report on the namkeen poisoning incident in Gautam Nagar does not say anything new. In fact, itself sounds confused. It says that the motive might have been to fan communal tension in the area but goes on to add that "it is also likely that somebody may have distributed namkeen as prasad without any intention to cause harm to anybody and without knowing that it was stale".The probe which happened on the day of the Assembly elections in former chief minister Sushma Swaraj's Hauz Khas constituency could not trace the persons behind the conspiracy. The report, prepared by the Additional District Magistrate, headquarters, Manoj Kumar, steers clear of indicting any political party for the incident.The report, which was submitted early this week, blames the police for not deploying regular beat constables, "which perhaps could have avoided this incident".More than 110 children and about 100 adults were affected by the free snacks delivered byunidentified persons on the day of polling which caused food poisoning.The report says: "The namkeen may have been distributed by some unknown persons who had the intention to create panic among the residents and communal disturbances in this thickly populated areas on the election eve."The Defence Colony police station received the report on the morning of November 25 that 210 people fell ill after consuming namkeen distributed by some "unknown persons" in the Gautam Nagar jhuggi cluster. They were rushed to AIIMS around 10.30 am.The timing of the incident sent both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into a tizzy. Both the parties blamed each other for resorting to dirty tricks to prevent voting.The Congress tried to make the most of the situation and its president Sonia Gandhi visited the victims at All India Institute of Medical Science along with her daughter Priyanka Vadra.The inquiry report is ambiguous about the involvement, if any, of the political parties."From the available records, it cannot be said that the namkeen was distributed by any of the political parties."The report says: "The residents being illiterate and poor ate the namkeen without ascertaining who was distributing it."Quoting from results of the tests done in AIIMS and Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL), the report rules out presence of "common poisons" in the namkeen. "It is certain that the namkeen was stale or contained some fungus, etc," it says.
