As we are all morbidly fascinated by the mind boggling murder of Ketan Agarwal, allegedly by his fiancee Siya Ghoshal, just another girl next door. And equally as our attention is focused on the devious heist by the Ram Mandir trustees, shattering the faith of millions. There is another incident in the news, which I fear may get buried under Prime Time rubble.
Fayaz Premji, an obvious psychopath, laced pellets with zinc phosphide ( rat poison paste, available ubiquitously) and distributed it to Muharram mourners in Bombay to bump off thousands.
Just a whim obviously, from his criminally devious mind.
Some folk from the procession consumed them as immunity boosters, before someone raised hell, and Premji was apprehended, with weapon grade zinc phosphide in his arsenal.
These are two indisputable facts.
Zinc phosphide or rat poison is as easily available in our country as vada pav.
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Zinc phosphide ingestion, inevitably KILLS except in rare cases and there is no rat sh*t we in the medical fraternity can do about it.
Basically it works by starving the cells of oxygen, entering the mitochondria and invariably screws your liver, lungs and heart in double speed time.
It kills
It kills
It kills !!
No escaping that.
I still recall, in my days in GMC, how young folk would consume it as a suicide modus operandi.
And then beg us to do something to save them, after regretting their actions.
The haunted eyes of many of those doomed lovers (mostly) never leave me..
There are antidotes for organo phosphorus pesticides, for overdose of sleeping tablets and other addictive substances.
But Nada, for Rat poison.
It is a death sentence unless you are very lucky that sentence is commuted.
The point I am trying to make therefore is that Premji has now raised the stakes.
From suicide to Murder !!
Mass murder at that.
It would make for a brilliant Agatha Christie novel if it wasn't so terrifying.
So these,are my three limited points :
Every country has strict, very strict regulations on how rat paste is sold.
Most countries in Asia, including China have banned it outright.
In western democracies ,every gram sold is recorded and traced.
In any case western democracies have evolved into committing mass murder with guns.
Rat poison is so boring.
By all reports, this guy Premji laid hands on kilograms upon kilograms of zinc phosphide
As we are busy supporting or opposing cockroaches, this genius was going after humans
Also is it possible that since Premji was targeting his own community and not people like us ,we don't seem to want the headlines and our TV anchors barking at us every night??
Just asking.
Zinc phosphide ( rat paste poison ) is a bio terrorism product.
No debate.
It is easily available, has a mildly bitter taste, is almost odourless and most importantly never kills instantly
You could drop dead of a cardiac arrest days later and no one would be the wiser if someone had laced your food with it sometime back.
So those unfortunate guys who took Premji's tablets have still got to be watched.
Ok, just so that we can get some legislation to completely ban or at least strictly regulate and monitor its sale.
Try this hypothesis -
Imagine you wanted to bump off a politician or a minister.
All you had to do was drop some rat paste in a dish, he was consuming, and Bob's your uncle.
Your dead uncle ,in this case.
Before more and more disgruntled elements in society get ideas like Premji
Zinc phosphide must be Banned Now, Now and Now.
This is Lethal.
This is Dangerous.
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Importantly some whacko has discovered it can murder.
Wake up and smell the garlic people.
Zinc phosphide actually smells just like that.
