Gopalganj District Magistrate Rahul Kumar having lunch at the government school in Kalyanpur village of Barauli in the district. Photo: @rahulias6

Gopalganj District Magistrate Rahul Kumar had lunch at the government school in Kalyanpur village of Barauli in the district on Friday along with scores of schoolchildren. The district magistrate, the senior-most government officer in the district, usually eats in his/her office in regal splendour. But DM Rahul Kumar was doing this with a purpose: to prove to villagers that a widowed cook cannot be a bad omen.

Sunita Kunwar, a 36-year-old widow, had been barred from cooking mid-day meals at the school because villagers felt she was a "bad omen". To keep her job, Sunita met Rahul Kumar and explained her case. He promised her the administration's support and asked her to rejoin work.

"I am being victimised as I am a widow... I have to look after my two minor children. I am fighting my battle alone and running from one office to another to get justice for the past 21 months," Sunita told The Telegraph after meeting Rahul Kumar at his weekly janata darbar.

Again to prevent her reinstatement, around 150 people stormed the school and forced both students and teachers out. They locked the school, denied mid-day meals to the students and shouted slogans against the local authorities for allowing the widow to work.

But the residents of Kalyanpur village, predominantly Rajput, threatened her. "We will not allow a widow to prepare mid-day meal for our kids. This is a bad omen. We fear a repeat of Gandaman incident in neighbouring Saran district where 23 children died after eating a contaminated meal in 2013," a Kalyanpur resident named Shiv Bihari Singh told The Telegraph. Several villagers concurred with Singh on the

Sunita is one of the six cooks who prepare midday meals for 734 students in the school. In January 2014, some villagers who had helped Sunita get the monthly Rs 1,000 job about five years ago questioned her character, a charge Sunita denies. Her relatives, especially her in-laws, refused to come to her aid.

Given the fraught situation in the village, the DM landed up at the school and asked Sunita Kunwar to serve him what she had cooked.

Rahul Kumar then posted the following tweets with photos of him eating a meal cooked by the widow.

"Sometimes you do symbolic things to overcome people's beliefs," he tweeted.

