The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has negated the charge that 86 inmates of Byculla Jail fell woefully ill on Friday because the prison facility was supplied contaminated water. Their denial is based on the report of the tests conducted on water samples retrieved from the jail the day the nauseous inmates, and an infant, were admitted to state-run JJ Hospital. The report, authored by officials of the BMC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), stated that they might have suffered from vomiting, bad bowel movement and dehydration due to contaminated water or food. The inmates and the prison authorities had earlier claimed that they might have suffered side effects of the antibiotic medication given to them on Thursday night. Dr Padmaja Keskar, BMC's executive health officer, however, stated that the doxycycline pills could not have been the reason for the illness. "The same batch of drugs was distributed across the city, so the medication cannot be the reason," Dr Keskar said. She also ruled out water as being the cause: "We have received the water sample report. There is no contamination in the water. It is clean." "They might have suffered due to consumption of bad food," Dr Keskar said. While the FDA collected five samples of raw food items from the jail — rice, wheat, soyabean oil, rice flakes, and dal — they failed to get samples of the cooked dish made of rice flakes that the inmates had consumed for breakfast on Friday. Shailesh Adhav, joint commissioner, food, Mumbai, said, "We sent the food samples for testing on Saturday. We are expecting the reports to come out soon. We took samples of five raw food items, but we could not find any prepared food even though we searched for it." Besides food, samples of the drug were also collected by the FDA. An official said that they have sealed the doxycycline batch number 2723/100ml, and submitted the drugs for testing. FDA Commissioner Dr Pallavi Darade was not available for comment. NOT IN THE PINK

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