PATNA, India, July 20 (Reuters) - An initial forensic report

has confirmed that the free school lunch that killed 23 children

this week in India's eastern state of Bihar was contaminated

with a pesticide, a senior police official said on Saturday.

The children fell ill within minutes of eating a meal of

rice and potato curry in their one-room school on Tuesday,

vomiting and convulsing with agonising stomach cramps.

The deaths sparked protests in Bihar. The lunch was part of

India's Mid-Day Meal Scheme that covers 120 million children and

aims to tackle malnutrition and encourage school attendance. It

had already drawn widespread complaints over food safety.

The report found the meal was prepared with cooking oil that

contained monocrotophos, an organophosphorus compound that is

used as an agricultural pesticide, Ravindra Kumar, a senior

police official, told reporters.

Police said on Friday they suspected the oil was kept in a

container previously used to store the pesticide. They are still

looking for the headmistress of the school, who fled after the

deaths.

The World Health Organisation describes monocrotophos as

highly hazardous.

(Reporting by Annie Banerji; Additional reporting by Anurag

Kotoky in New Delhi; Writing by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by

Jo Winterbottom and Raissa Kasolowsky)