14 old Kanza dies of food poisoning.. Does anyone care?

As little Kanza was stepping into her teens her life was extinguished  for a reason so trivial it almost boggles the imagination. She died simply.. because she consumed her favourite brand of chicken burger.

“It was like just another day when you receive a call from your kids, who tell you: Dad I don’t want to eat what mom has cooked. Can you please get us something to eat. Like every father, I did what a father was supposed to do. I came home with a bundle of their favourite burgers,” the aggrieved father who had tears in his eyes told the media.

The burgers were reportedly purchased from the popular food outlet, “Dilpasand”. ‘Dilpasand’ translated in english reads as “close to the Heart”

“We consumed three burgers leaving one for a later time. In a matter of hours we all started throwing up. By 03:00 AM we knew something was terribly wrong” he added.

The whole family fell sick, but his daughter Kanza,13, became serious. Reportedly, she suffered a bout of acute food poisoning that was initially portrayed as a choking fit after eating Kidchri (rice and lentils).

Late in the night, she was rushed to the emergency room after profuse vomiting, watery stools with cramps in extremities.

The next morning, the poor parents were told that the light of their lives had been snuffed out.

Her ordeal strikes close to the heart because it is not just her story, but the story of countless people who have suffered grievously for the ‘crime’ of consuming a delicious meal. Her case made it to the media. Most don’t.

I remember once drinking a bowl of soup from a popular eatery and ending up in the ICU of the local hospital.  I was lucky enough to survive. But for every survivor,  God alone knows how many people specially  young children lose their lives to the abject greed or carelessness of food vendors.

In a country where ‘eating out,  is the dominant venue of entertainment, such tragedies are all but a regular occurrence.

Indeed so blasé have we become that the child’s death did not even dent Dilpasand’s popularity, since the rush outside their Clifton branch as the same as ever before.

The bereaved family now wants the police to take action against ‘Dilpadasand’ so that the sale of those ‘killer burgers’ could be stopped and the lives of other innocent children be saved. Though many days have passed, an  F.I.R (First Information report) has not been registered against the popular fast food franchise.

Police, meanwhile claim they have launched an investigation into the case,  though why they have  have refrained from filing an F.I.R is a matter of conjecture.

 “The last time we spoke was when the paramedics were passing a cannula into her vein. I said it must be painful. She replied, ‘no mom I didn’t feel a thing, it was just a prick, I’m cool” Kinza’s mother says, sobbing her heart out.

Photo Curtesy: Adeel Saya (@adeelsaya) | Twitter