In an appalling incident which highlights the authorities’ apathy, labourer Mohammad Sultan from Jammu and Kashmir was compelled to carry his two-year-old son’s dead body in a bus after he was allegedly denied ambulance services.
What had happened?
According to a News18 report, Sultan lost his ailing son Manan on Thursday, November 15. Recalling the horrific ordeal, Muzaffar Hussain, Sultan’s nephew said that on Thursday morning, they took Manan to Kishtwar hospital after he started feeling sick at his house in Kucchal village.
While he was administered some medicines there, owing to his deteriorating health conditions, the doctors there referred him to Jammu children’s hospital. He was reportedly suffering from acute pneumonia.
The family sought help from a local volunteering organisation, which requested Kishtwar deputy commissioner Angrez Singh Rana to provide a critical-care ambulance to take the child to Jammu. However, the DC allegedly dismissed their plea and said, “no one dies of pneumonia’’. The organisation then collected money for the family and rushed them to the Jammu hospital in an ordinary ambulance.
The family comes from a poor financial background and was unable to pay Rs 3800 for ambulance fuel charges. They even asked Rana to provide ambulance free of cost, which he allegedly denied. However, Rana said that had they requested, he could’ve considered.
The eight-hour-long journey covering a distance of 230 km from Kishtwar to Jammu sadly, proved to be fatal for the little boy. The family’s horror did not end there as they had to carry the boy’s dead body back to Kishtwar on a public bus, wrapped in a blanket.
“No one was willing to take us back home through the night. We turned to everyone for the help, spent six hours at the Jammu bus stand. Finally, we decided to board a passenger bus without telling anyone that a baby lay dead in a folded blanket,” added Hussain. Following this, there were large-scale protests in the district.
What do the authorities have to say?
Rana told The Kashmir Mirror, “The critical care ambulance was already on the road coming back from Jammu after ferrying another patient.” Moreover, when asked as to why the boy could not be airlifted, he said that the family did not write an application for the chopper service.
Sajjad Ahmed Najjar, a local councillor has demanded that Rana and others should be suspended for negligence.
The baby could have possibly been saved had the authorities sprung into action to provide a critical-care ambulance for the child. The Logical Indian condemns such apathy and urges the authorities to look into the matter.
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