Five Hospitalised After Eating ‘Dry Ice’ As Mouth Freshener At A Gurugram Eatery

Guests ate dinner at a restaurant in Gurugram’s Sector 90. Five people were admitted to the hospital with serious inside injuries after being given unknown chemical crystals rather than mouth fresheners. Police officials informed of the situation on Monday.

On March 2, Manika Goenka, his wife Pritika Rustagi, their friends Deepak Arora and his wife Himani, Ankit Kumar and his wife Neha Sabharwal, all of whom were between the ages of 25 and 30, and Kumar and Neha’s one-year-old daughter were all present at the Laforestta Café celebrating Manika’s birthday.

After dinner at ten o’clock at night, Ankit Kumar informed investigators, a waiter came over with a dish of what looked like “mishri,” or sweeteners. All of them, except for Kumar and his daughter, finished the crystals. According to Kumar, they began to bleed from their mouths in a matter of seconds.

Their mouths were burnt from some kind of chemical reaction and all of them started spitting blood. We screamed but no one came to help. The restaurant employees fled the scene. I called the police control room, and a police team arrived after 30 minutes,

Ankit Kumar

According to Kumar, he took some of the crystals—possibly dry ice—from the restaurant staff by force so that the doctors could see them, and then he brought the crystals to the police.

Deepak Kumar Jewaria, deputy commissioner of police (Manesar), said they will send the crystals for chemical analysis soon. “Investigation is underway to determine how the guests were served harmful chemicals instead of sweeteners. We will scrutinise all the licences issued to the restaurant,” he said.

In response to Kumar’s complaint, the Kherki Daula police station received a first information report on Sunday under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 328 (causing hurt by poisoning) of the Indian Penal Code against the waitress and several restaurant employees.