Bangalore, Jan 2 (DHNS): The New Year couldn’t have unfolded in a more pathetic way for workers of a garment factory in Bommasandra here after several hundreds were taken ill in a suspected case of food-poisoning before being admitted to Narayana Hrudyalaya Day Care Centre on Friday. 

Complaining of stomach aches and giddiness, the workers, attached to Page Industries, manufacturers of Jockey hosiery products, poured in for treatment at the hospital throughout the day. As anxiety and panic gripped the workers, many of them were shifted to the ICU at the Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre.

State Health Department officials said trouble began when caterers served a grand New Year’s eve lunch to the workers who did not suspect anything until one by one they doubled up in pain.

“Initial reports indicated that the problem occurred because of the bad food that was served during lunch on Thursday,” said the Health Department Director D N Nayak. The Health Department has now directed its investigating doctors to register a case with the local police against the caterer on charges of negligence. Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) doctors, however, refuted the food poisoning theory. “We inspected samples of vomit which had no food particles. People regurgitated only water and mucus,” a BBMP doctor said. 

The caterer, Ranganath, told Deccan Herald: “We supplied food to two companies at the same time on Thursday. But only this company reported problems with the food. If poisoning had to occur then it would have happened within three or four hours.” Officials indicated that Rangnath’s catering agency was to end its contract on December 31, 2009 and that it was not being renewed. 

Exhausted and in pain, Ganga, one of the garment workers, said: “I was feeling a bit uneasy after having lunch at the factory on Thursday. But after coming to work today, I developed giddiness and severe stomach pain.”

Kavitha, another worker who was admitted to the hospital, could hardly speak. “After walking into the factory and drinking water, I developed severe burning sensation in my stomach and felt very weak. I have no clue what went wrong,” she said.

Fumes from factory culprit?

The mystery sickness is being attributed by some BBMP officials to certain fumes emanating inside the factory complex, reports DHNS. “We received information that initially some fume caused the chaos,” said a BBMP official.