TEHRAN -- President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday ordered Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to carry out an immediate investigation to find the root causes behind the poisoning of schoolgirls.
Raisi has tasked Vahidi with immediately following up on the issue and asked him to announce the results to the public to alleviate families’ concerns.
The order comes as according to Shahriar Heidari, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, some 900 students have been poisoned in various Iranian cities.
Vahidi said in a press conference on Wednesday that a meeting was held with officials from responsible bodies to follow up on the issue. He dismissed reports that a student has been paralyzed as a result of poisoning.
The investigations do not prove the use of any special element yet, he stressed, adding that no arrests have been made on the case.
He said security bodies are investigating whether the serial incident was a result of “personal adventurism” or “factors outside schools.”
“Our enemies are trying to disturb the country and fuel fear in the hearts of our loved ones,” he said, referring to the foreign media propaganda in recent days which has focused on the issue to depict the country as insecure and against women’s rights.
One of the conspiracy theories promoted in the media is that the poisoning is targeting girls to imply opposition to women’s rights in Iran.
“The fact that they are only choosing girls shows that there is a plot to indicate that the government is against women’s education and rights,” Hussein Jalali, a member of Parliament’s cultural committee, said on Wednesday.
The serial poisoning incident started in Qom in late November before expanding to other provinces such as Ardabil, Tehran, Lorestan, Fars, Ilam, Qazvin, and Mazandaran, according to Mehr News Agency.
Speaking on Tuesday, Health Minister Bahram Eynollahi said that a special committee, comprised of the country’s top toxicologists, was formed and that their studies showed that the used toxicant has had “slight” impacts.
Western and foreign-based Persian-language media, meanwhile, have been busy disseminating rumors, speculation, and fake news to fuel concern in society, especially among parents.