15 wedding guests hospitalised near Mumbai after eating stale meat during sangeet

Incident took place in a tribal village in Wada, Palghar; one patient in a critical condition has been shifted to Thane hospital

At least 15 villagers have been hospitalised in Wada, Palghar district, after they ate allegedly stale mutton during a wedding sangeet function in Chendwali-Tuse village. A 65-year-old woman from the village also passed away, but doctors said she suffered a heart attack and had not eaten the meat.

Some of the patients at Wada Rural Hospital. (Rahul Patil)

Wada is located around 80km north of Mumbai city.

While 14 patients are being treated at Wada Rural Hospital, one patient, Dipika Kambdi, 28, has been taken to Thane Civil Hospital in a critical condition.

“The victims, mostly tribals, attended a late-night ceremony at Chendwali-Tuse village on Wednesday, where they were served meat,” said Dr Pradip Jadhav, superintendent, Wada Rural Hospital. “By Thursday morning, they were vomiting, complained of abdominal ache and had diarrhoea, and more and more patients started coming to our hospital.”

“Kambdi’s condition is critical, but she is responding to treatment at Thane Civil hospital,” Jadhav said. “The senior citizen who died, Giraji Ladkya Dandekar, had a heart attack. Her post-mortem report does not show that she had eaten the contaminated meat.”

By the time doctors from Wada got to the village to collect samples of the food, the caterers had thrown it away, Jadhav said, adding: “So we could not get samples for forensic analysis.” However, majority of the patients said they had consumed the mutton and showed symptoms of food poisoning, he said.

The mutton was cooked in an aluminium vessel in the afternoon, a few hours before the sangeet. “Either the vessel may not have been washed properly by the caterer, or due to the heat, the food got spoilt,” the doctor speculated.

The Wada police registered a case of accidental death on Friday with regard to the death of the senior citizen. No case has been registered as yet for the food-poisoning incident; the police are looking to question the caterer.