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‘People were dropping like flies’: IIT Delhi students fall ill with food poisoning, exam delayed
After students at IIT Delhi experienced food poisoning symptoms, the institute stated the cause was sweets from an outside vendor, not mess food.
An anonymous post shared on Reddit yesterday claimed that several students at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi took ill after eating food served in the hostel mess. However, the institute has denied this version of events, claiming that residents of a boys' hostel ate sweets procured from an “outside vendor” and began to display symptoms of food poisoning.
In a statement to HT.com, IIT Delhi confirmed that one exam had been deferred by a week in view of the gastro-related outbreak.
IIT students blame mess food
In the now-viral Reddit post, a person claiming to be a student of IIT Delhi said he and several other residents of his hostel began displaying symptoms of food poisoning after eating litti chokha in the mess. The students fell ill with diarrhea, fever, vomiting and other gastro-related symptoms.
“Last night our hostel served litti chokha in the mess, and everyone ate it. Fast forward to this morning—boom—people are literally dropping like flies. Vomiting, diarrhea, fever, shivering…” the student claimed.
“Nobody knows what was contaminated—the food? the water? both? The whole hostel turned into a patient ward overnight,” he continued, claiming that several students were treated at the campus hospital but some had to be rushed to the nearby Max Hospital in an ambulance.
The student ended his post by criticising the institute for not serving hygienic food. “This is honestly shameful. We pay for this mess food, don’t even have an option to opt out, and this is what we get? Absolute joke. IIT Delhi, this is peak embarrassment,” he wrote.
IIT Delhi’s response
IIT Delhi, in a statement to HT.com, said that some students of a boys' hostel fell ill after eating sweets from outside. One exam, scheduled to take place on April 30, has now been deferred to May 7 in view of the incident.
“Some of the students residing in a boys' hostel at IIT Delhi visited the Institute hospital with symptoms like nausea, fever, and stomach ache. As informed by some of the students to the medical staff, they experienced these symptoms after eating sweets that were procured from an outside vendor.
“All the students were treated at the IIT hospital, and most of them have been discharged. All the students are now stable,” the institute said.
“The Institute administration is providing all necessary support to the students to ensure their physical well-being.
The end-semester examinations were scheduled from April 30 to May 7, 2025. Due to health issues faced by some students, the examination originally set for April 30 has been moved to May 8, 2025. The rest of the scheduled examination remains unchanged,” the statement from IIT Delhi further confirmed.
