Cong protest in Assam turns tragic; advocate dies amid police action
A Congress worker, Mridul Islam, lost his life on Wednesday following a massive protest organized by the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) in Guwahati.
Superstitions claimed the life of a 12-year-old adolescent boy in Udaynarayanpur in Howrah, hardly 45km from the state secretariat, Nabanna.
The incident occurred at Shibanipur in the Udaynarayanpur area on 26 April, exposing how a section of people in the society still believe in superstitions like witchcraft and sorcery at a time when modern medicines and hi-tech medical devices give new leases of life to dying people across the world.
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Ritesh Adhikari (12), a local resident in the village, was admitted to the Udaynarayanpur State General Hospital that caters to healthcare services to thousands of patients in rural belts of Howrah and Hooghly districts, on 25 April, showing symptoms of gastritis problems.
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The next day, 26 April, family members of Ritesh requested the hospital authorities to discharge his son so that they could take him to another hospital for his better treatment.
The hospital authorities discharged the boy after his family members signed on a discharge on risk bond (DORB) form.
Locals in the village said that the boy was taken to a witch witchcraft practitioner (ojha) at Rajbalhat in the Udaynarayanpur area, instead of taking him to another hospital. The boy’s condition deteriorated after they brought him back home in the afternoon. He was taken to the Udaynarayanpur State General Hospital again the same day where doctors declared him brought-dead.
A Rogi Kalyan Samiti (RKS) member of the state general hospital, said, “The boy was a victim of superstitious practices or else he would have been saved after treatment at the hospital. Unfortunately, his family members depended on superstitions, instead of modern medicine.”
Chandicharan Adhikari, the deceased’s father, is a migrant labourer, working outside the state. He came back home on 26 April after the news of his son’s death.
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