The police believe that a 13-year-old kid who passed away on Saturday in Karaikal, Puducherry, was poisoned by a classmate whose mother tainted his soda since he surpassed her daughter. The youngster started vomiting when he got home from a rehearsal for his school's annual day celebration on Friday at about 12.30 p.m., which alarmed his parents, according to officials on Sunday.

The youngster told his mother he got sick after drinking a soft drink at school, according to a police report his mother made that day at the Karaikal police station.

“After he returned home in the afternoon, he started vomiting. He said he had been sick since the time the school watchman gave him a cold drink,” news agency ANI quoted his father as saying.

The youngster questioned his mother if she had sent the soft drink when he got home, according to the complaint. The boy's mother suspected that the school watchman had received the drink from a different relative. The eighth-grade kid was taken by ambulance to the Karaikal government hospital, where he was treated and then released. But as his condition deteriorated, he was admitted to the hospital late on Friday night.

While this was going on, the boy's relatives went back to the school to find out who had given the security officer the drink. Officials claim that the school's CCTV footage showed the mother of the boy's classmate giving the security officer the drink. The 13-year-old is seen in a video from his hospital bed explaining that his classmate argued with him when he scored higher than she did, and the footage has since been extensively shared on social media.

“Her mother gave a soft drink to my school watchman saying that it was from my mother,” he said in the undated video. “I drank and began feeling uncomfortable so I went home. Then I started vomiting,” the boy said. HT could not establish the authenticity of the video.

According to the boy's family, his classmate's mother was envious of the boy's academic success and poisoned him.

“From LKG to now, he has stood first in class. This has happened out of jealousy,” a family member of the deceased said.

On Friday night, the boy's relatives demonstrated in front of the hospital, accusing it of incompetence. “We were running between the hospital and the police station. He was alright till 8 pm last night and when police suddenly showed up, we knew something went wrong,” the person cited above said. Charges under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code were added after the kid passed away on Saturday, but the police had initially filed a case under Section 328 of the Indian Penal Code (causing pain by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence).

R Lokeshwaran, senior superintendent of police in Karaikal, reported that the 42-year-old suspect was taken into custody on Saturday.

“It’s a clear cut murder case,” the SSP said. “The accused’s version is that she mixed laxative pills from someone who makes country medicines to cause diarrhoea but the post mortem exam report has found traces of poison which needs to be confirmed further,” he said, adding that the accused has been remanded to judicial custody.

Puducherry transport minister Chandra Priyanka met the boy’s parents on Sunday, and promised action. “They have lost a life and they shared all their complaints with me which we will thoroughly investigate,” Priyanka said. “If the hospital has made a mistake, as they say, we will definitely take action.”

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