Colour poisoning kills 13-year-old in Mumbai

Sachin Walmiki, a railway employee, was on his way to Lucknow for official work on Thursday when he got a call from relatives saying his 13-year-old son was sick and had been admitted to a hospital.

Sachin Walmiki, a railway employee, was on his way to Lucknow for official work on Thursday when he got a call from relatives saying his 13-year-old son was sick and had been admitted to a hospital.

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Walmiki got off at the next station and took another train back to Mumbai. By the time he reached at 2 pm on Thursday, his son had died.

Walmiki, who had to come to Rajawadi Hospital on Friday to sign the consent forms for conducting postmortem on his son’s body, looked stunned.

A resident of the Kurla railway colony, the teenager had gone out on Thursday morning to play Holi and came home at about 11:30 am.

According to the victim’s maternal grandmother, Bharati Bagadi, he ate some food and went to sleep. “Some other children showed similar symptoms after playing with colour. So our neighbours told his mother Lata to check if he was fine. It was then that we realised that he was unconscious,” said Bagadi.

The teenager was admitted to Rajawadi Hospital at about 3 pm and was stable for some time, said Bagadi. “We were asked to give the blood samples at Sion Hospital. Before we came back, the child was put on a ventilator. At about 7 pm, we were told that the child may not survive,” Bagadi said.

On Friday, Lata was cooking lunch for her son and talked about getting him ready to attend his tuition classes. “She has not accepted the death yet,” said Bagadi.

Besides the teenager, at least 206 residents of Kurla and Dharavi, including 91 children, were rushed to hospitals on Thursday after they suffered from colour poisoning after playing Holi.