Fourteen people, including three children, died of consuming poisonous sweetmeat in Pakistan’s Punjab province, police said on Friday.
The sweetmeat was brought from a shop in Layyah district, some 325 km from here, to celebrate the birthday of a child. It was served to seven members of a family. Their condition deteriorated soon after eating the sweetmeat.
They were rushed to the nearby hospital. “In addition to these seven patients, some 25 other people of the village who ate the poisonous sweetmeat from the same shop were also brought to the hospital. But 14 of them died between Thursday and Friday,” Executive District Officer Ameer Abdullah told reporters. He said the condition of some five more patients was critical. The dead include three children.
Abdullah said the health department has sealed the sweet shop and seized the “remaining poisonous sweetmeat” and sent for laboratory examination. “We have have also lodged an FIR the Pure Food Act against the shop owner,” he said.
District Police Officer Layyah Muhammad Ali Zia said that the shop owner Khalid Mahmoud was arrested.