In a tragic twist of fate, the 13 birthday of B. Divya turned out to be her last day. Her parents, Nagababu and Sandhya Rani, were busy making arrangements for the birthday celebrations when the shattering phone call from school came. Divya had died, informed the worried voice.
Shocked and struck with disbelief, the parents rushed to the hospital. How could their daughter, who was to celebrate her birthday later in the evening, die, and that too choked by ‘dal rice’?
The incident happened on Thursday afternoon when Divya was having lunch with her classmates. Minutes before she had reportedly choked from the home-cooked food that she carried in her lunchbox, Divya shared details about the birthday celebrations slated for the evening. She distributed chocolates brought by her maternal uncle Santosh and invited all her friends to join the party.
Divya’s death also came as a shocker to her classmates. The sixth-standard student of the government high school at Jillelaguda collapsed after gulping a morsel of dal rice during lunch time. Horrified at the sight of Divya gasping for air, one of her friends ran to alert their teacher.
The school authorities immediately rushed her to a corporate hospital at Malakpet where doctors declared her brought dead.
“We are still unable to come out from the shock. Her memories are still fresh in our minds,” says Santosh with tears welling up in his eyes.
According to Santosh, the girl’s mother Sandhya Rani prepared dal rice, packed it in Divya’s tiffin box and kept it in her bag. The girl’s father Nagababu and her brother Naveen Kumar too had the same rice in the morning, but they did not develop any complications. “We are unable to understand as how rice got stuck in her throat,” he says.
She was healthy and joyful and never showed any signs of health problems. Divya was an intelligent student and aspired to become a doctor.
Meanwhile, the police said they had sent the food samples to the forensic science laboratory, and that the cause for death could be ascertained after getting the report.
