A 62-year-old person died and four others of a Sabar family in Purulia district fell ill after allegedly eating an unidentified root on Thursday morning.

Refuting the possibility of hunger that prompted the Sabar family in Puncha area to eat the root, Purulia district magistrate Rahul Majumdar said: “We have checked that the family had no shortage of food. The family had collected their share of rations two days back.”

All the four persons who fell ill have been admitted to Puncha primary hospital. All are stable, said a doctor at the Puncha hospital.

Sources said Jaladhar Sabar, 62, and four of his family members from Nirbhaipur village of Puncha had eaten a boiled edible root that they had collected from forests on Thursday morning.

“All of them immediately started to vomit after consuming the root. We took them to the hospital but Jaladhar died on the way,” said a villager.

Police, along with district officials, started a preliminary probe to find out the cause of the death.

“The sample of edible root that the Sabar family had consumed has been collected. It will be preserved in case we need to undertake further tests,” said a doctor at the Puncha hospital.

District magistrate Majumdar said the tribal population in Jungle Mahal often eat such edible roots.

“It might be that the root the family found and ate contained some poisonous element,” he said.