KARACHI, July 4: The police on Sunday arrested three people for selling contaminated milk to the residents of Jogian-Jo-Pado in Shah Latif Town that triggered a mass food poisoning episode on Saturday affecting more than 300 people.

It was learnt that the milk was sold at a 'special' rate of Rs10 per litre. The food poisoning victims had to be taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Civil Hospital Karachi and National Institute of Child Health for medical treatment, besides being treated at some healthcare centres in Quaidabad and Malir.

Aleem Jafri, Town Police Officer of the Bin Qasim Town identified the arrested people as Sikander, Younus and Esso. He said a couple of cows in Sikander's dairy farm had given birth to calves.

"Such occasions are joyous events for the predominantly Hindu community, who make confections using the milk of the cows giving birth to calves. However, this time around the occasion should not have been treated as a joyous one because one of the calves had died during birth," he told Dawn.

Mr Jafri said Sikander should not have sold the milk of the cow that had given birth to a dead calf simply because it was likely to be poisonous. "However, he wanted to make a quick buck and every drop of milk was sold."

Meanwhile, Rizwan Edhi told this reporter that the Edhi Foundation had to set up an emergency camp in Shah Latif Town to deal with the situation developing after the food poisoning incident.

"We provided first aid at this camp and also washed the stomachs of dozens of people suffering from food poisoning." Most of the food poisoning victims were either children or elderly people, he said.

Edhi ambulances shifted 60 seriously ill people to the NICH, 40 to the JPMC and 20 to the CHK, he added. Mr Edhi said that his organization had ensured that no hospital was sent too many patients.

"We distributed the people among five or six hospitals." Dr Seemin Jamali of the JPMC told this reporter that the condition of most of the patients had stabilised by Sunday evening and they had been discharged. Similar was the situation at the NICH and CHK, said the sources at these hospitals.