A 10-year-old girl died in Punjab, northern India, while eating her birthday cake, the girl’s family claims.

Police are investigating the incident, which occurred after the girl’s family ordered a chocolate cake online from a bakery in Patiala city. Soon after eating it, the entire family fell ill with symptoms of food poisoning, including nausea and vomiting.

The girl, identified as Manvi, started vomiting soon after she cut and ate the cake late in the evening of March 24, said the girl’s grandfather, Harban Lal. Mr. Lal said Manvi felt thirsty and reported discomfort due to dryness in her mouth.

She went to bed, but when she woke up the next morning, her condition worsened. Her family rushed her to the local hospital.

She was put on oxygen and underwent an electrocardiogram, a diagnostic test that measures the heart’s electrical activity, but she was pronounced dead shortly afterward, Mr Lal said.

The family claimed that the cake was contaminated and filed a police complaint against the bakery owner.

Samples of the cake and the victim’s body have been sent for examination and the results are awaited, police told local media.

The family also noticed that the name of the bakery on the bill did not match that of the actual shop, suggesting that it might be a rogue cloud kitchen.

Such kitchens operate with minimal infrastructure, often in small premises, to efficiently handle online delivery orders. They package food from a central location, offering flexibility and cost efficiency in operations.

“We are also monitoring this cloud kitchen concept because the name of the bakery on Zomato keeps changing,” said local police officer Sarfaraz Alam.

Zomato is a food delivery app in India. The company has not yet publicly commented on the Patiala incident and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The family also accused the local health department of indifference, claiming that the first police report was received five days after Manvi’s death.

Mr. Lal was quoted by NDTV as saying, “The health department official refused to take the sample of the cake we had ordered. The official insisted that they would only take samples from the shop where the cake was baked.”

A Zomato spokesperson said in a statement The Independent: “We are deeply shocked and heartbroken by the recent tragic incident in Patiala. As soon as we came to know about the incident, which is now under police investigation, we immediately removed the restaurant from the Zomato platform.”

The spokesperson added, “We have also banned the restaurant owner from doing business on Zomato. We are fully supporting the law enforcement authorities in this matter.”