Villagers in Bihar’s Gopalganj district have prohibited a widow woman from cooking mid-day meals at a government-run school. Rahul Kumar, district Magistrate of Gopalganj turned out to be the hero of the occasion when he helped the widow in the most amazing way possible.

She was barred by villagers from cooking midday meals for students at a government school in Bihar’s Gopalgunj district, just because she is a widow and they believe eating food cooked by her will bring them bad luck. Sunita Kuwar was one among six women engaged in cooking food for children in the school under midday meal scheme and was paid Rs 1000 per month as her salary.

The parents of school children had protested against the preparation of midday meal by the widow and even forced the school to be closed since Wednesday last. That is when Sunita, who has two children, approached Gopalganj district magistrate (DM) Rahul Kumar on Thursday, who assured her that he would help her out to get her reinstated at the school.

And true to his word, Rahul Kumar helped her, but he also managed to dispel the superstitions of the villagers with a solid, cheeky response – he made Sunita cook for him and ate the meal in full view of the villagers.

Rahul Kumar then posted the following tweets with photos of him eating a meal cooked by the widow.

Sometimes u do symbolic things to overcome people’s beliefs. Asked the same widow cook to serve me the meal. pic.twitter.com/SoHXueqqRv

— DM Gopalganj (@rahulias6) December 18, 2015

“I along with district education officer visited the school today and ate the midday meal prepared by the lady for students.” Mr Kumar said, Kumar not only had the meal cooked by her but also asked officials to find out the real reason on why she was asked to stop cooking in the first place.

Following the DM’s intervention, the villagers withdrew their protest and the locks were removed from the school. Sunita was reinstated to her job with help from the district authorities on Friday.