A provincial investigative task force in Jiangxi on Saturday overturned an earlier investigation by local authorities, confirming that the object found by a college student in a canteen meal was in fact the head of a rat, rather than the duck neck reported by the initial local-level probe.
On June 1, a student from Jiangxi Industry Polytechnic College in Nanchang uploaded a video to social media, showing a strange object in his meal at the college's canteen, which he suspected to be a mouse head.
The video, showing a black object appearing to be the skull of a mouse, soon sparked heated discussions online.
The college said in a statement on June 3 that the object in the video was not a rat's head, but rather a duck neck.
"After investigation, the content of the video does not match the facts," the school said in its statement. "The student in question invited classmates to identify the object at the time of the incident, and confirmed it as a duck neck, a normal ingredient."
The school stated that the student had given a written statement on the scene clarifying the video's content, adding that the market supervision bureau in the high-tech development zone of Nanchang had also sent law enforcement officers to the school to conduct an investigation.
In a June 3 report by Jiangxi Radio and Television Station, Jiang Xiexue, the director of the market supervision bureau's Changdong branch, said that law enforcement personnel "repeatedly compared the object and confirmed that it was indeed a duck neck".
However, this conclusion did not quell the anger online, as many believed that the local market supervision bureau and the school were lying because the object in the video looked very different from a duck neck.
According to Xinhua News Agency, on June 10, Jiangxi province established a joint investigation team composed of provincial departments, including education, public security and the market supervision administration, to investigate the incident.
In the Saturday statement released by the Jiangxi provincial government's information office on its official Sina Weibo account, the team determined that the object was not a duck neck, after reviewing the canteen kitchen's video, purchasing list, and interviewing canteen staff, the student and witnesses.
The statement said the object was confirmed to be the head of a rodent, after identification by animal experts of the photos and videos taken by the student.
The provincial investigation team said on Saturday that the local market supervision department and the college "did not conduct an investigation carefully "and issued an incorrect conclusion.
It said that the college canteen's food license has been revoked and the company which operates the canteen and its legal representative had been given the maximum penalty, in accordance with the Food Safety Law and related regulations.
The provincial investigation team said that for the next phase, people from the college and the market supervision bureau's Changdong branch who are responsible will be strictly punished in accordance with the law.
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