Did Halal food claim another young life in Kerala? A nine-year-old girl undergoing treatment for severe vomiting following food poisoning died in Kozhikode NIT this Tuesday.

On the 17th, the child and her parents ate ‘Mandi’ from a fast food shop in Kattangal, inside the NIT Campus. The deceased was Khyati Singh, daughter of Jain Singh, a native of Telangana. Singh is an employee of the prestigious National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode. 

Mandi is an Arabic dish prepared using meat, like lamb, chicken, or beef. It is a rice dish that differs from biryani in how it’s cooked and served. The meat is cooked separately and then piled on top of the rice before it’s served. The Arabs do not use spices, masala, or oil, but their Kerala imposters do.

The young victim started vomiting after consuming the food, and her parents took her to a private hospital in Mukkam. Her condition worsened, and they rushed her to another private hospital in Kozhikode. Doctors informed Jain that there were signs that the poison had affected the child’s internal organs.

Singh and his family arrived in Kozhikode just four months ago. Since they were not allocated official quarters, Singh and his family stayed in a rented house.

Following complaints from the parents, Kerala police registered a case of unnatural death. The distraught parents alleged that the food consumed by the child was contaminated.

Upon suspicion of food poisoning in Khyati’s death, Chuloor Family Health Center officials in Kattangal examined the region. Several shops and establishments that did not have adequate sanitation systems were closed down. Some hotel backyards were found to be mosquito breeding grounds, and plastic waste was strewn all around. 

The inspection was conducted at hotels, bakeries, chicken stalls, fish markets, and labor quarters. Chuloor Health Inspector Siju K Nair, Junior Health Inspectors Sudhir Raj O, Abdul Rasheed E, and Femi Mol O led the inspection. Kunnamangalam Sub-Inspector A Ashraf assisted them, ASI Abdullah M. Officials collected fines from a few erring shopowners, and that was it. 

An inquest was conducted on the body on Wednesday. While Khyati’s relatives blamed the food she ate from a fast food shop for the death, the Kunnamangalam police claimed she died of liver and kidney failure.

“Doctors who examined the body said the girl had symptoms of viral hepatitis, and her liver and kidney were damaged. She also had pneumonia. Any medicine she was having could have caused the death or due to the intake of any poisonous substance. However, the symptoms show long-term liver disease,” said Kunnamangalam SHO Ashraf A.

Justification came swiftly, but many locals were not impressed. An independent inquiry might unravel the truth, but it is impossible in ‘secular’ Kerala. A particular community owns most shops and establishments inside the Kozhikode NIT campus. Suspiciously, details about the erring eatery remain unknown.

In mid-November, HinduPost reported that around 1,500 dead chickens were found stored in the MKB Market owned by CP Rasheed near Eranhikkal in the Kozhikode district. Tools used for shawarma mixing and machines to slaughter and skin chickens were also found. Mandi is made using the same meat. 

A mafia is importing sick chickens (called Tsunami chicken) from farms in other states into Kerala. The financial intelligence department had informed that a group evading taxes was behind this smuggling.

Dead chickens crossing the border are collected by wholesalers at half price. Such rotten meat is in high demand in wholesale centers as it can be sold at a lower price than the market price. Profits soar since they do not pay taxes.

Hotels and bakeries mainly buy contaminated meat from them. Dead chickens are primarily brought to the district from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. No one notices as the goods are delivered in lorries early in the morning.

Such establishments then supply shawarma meat to many restaurants in north Kerala. By the following day, Keralite Hindus forgot the incident and queued to buy flesh from the same Halal meat shops. They deny the connection between the Halal economy, political Islam, and its consequences. The food industry is no longer in Hindu hands in so-called secular Kerala, and now hygiene and health are at stake.

In May, consuming contaminated meat shawarma led to the death of a 16-year-old Devananda in Kasargod, Kerala, and 52 were hospitalized. Those affected had stale meat from Ideal Coolbar at the Cheruvathoor bus stand. Eight victims are in intensive care units, and the condition of another young girl was severe. Doctors said that she was suffering from cardiac seizures.  

Chandera police arrested Anas, a managing partner of Ideal Coolbar at Cheruvathoor bus stand, and a migrant cook named Sandesh Roy from Nepal. Another owner was in a gulf country. Such eateries have a history of selling old meat. Authorities did not initiate any strict action.

Thousands of eateries across the state are unlicensed or unregistered, and each stocks hundreds of kilograms of unclean meat. Restaurants like KC Halal restaurant in Kannur found storing food materials inside the toilets were let off with mere ‘fines.’