Son alleges negligence by hospital after missing man’s body found in Kochi
Kochi (PTI): The son of a Bengaluru native, whose suspected body was found in a forested area near the HMT premises here, alleged on Monday that his father's death was due to the negligence of Ernakulam Government Medical College authorities.
Santon told reporters that Suraj Lama (59), who suffered from memory loss, would not have died had they not discharged him.
Lama, who ran a restaurant in Kuwait, reportedly developed memory impairment following methanol poisoning and was deported in early October.
He arrived at Kochi airport on October 5 and was admitted to Ernakulam Medical College in Kalamassery.
However, he went missing after being discharged from the hospital on October 10.
Santon, who reached Kochi and searched for his father, later filed a habeas corpus petition in the Kerala High Court, which directed the police to form a special investigation team to locate the missing man.
Police officials said CCTV footage showed Lama was last seen near the HMT area, and a search led to the recovery of a decomposed body.
The clothing recovered matched what Lama was last seen wearing, they said.
“My brother saw the body — it is beyond recognition. I saw the photograph. We cannot identify him,” Santon said, adding that they will wait for DNA confirmation.
He alleged that the hospital acted irresponsibly in discharging his father despite knowing his condition.
“I have a medical certificate from the Kuwait government stating that my father is mentally challenged. How can the hospital say he requested discharge? How did they let him go in that condition?” he asked.
He said the body has now been taken to the same Medical College for further formalities.
“I will move the High Court seeking to shift the procedures elsewhere. I want a second medical opinion before any conclusion,” he said.
Santon also criticised immigration officials and airport authorities for allegedly failing to notice his father's mental condition upon arrival.
“Nobody cared. How come an Indian citizen is treated like this? We are from a freedom fighters’ family,” he said.
Maintaining that the police tried their best, he said searches were conducted earlier in the same region with dog squads based on the High Court’s direction.
“But the body was found just a short distance away from where we checked,” he said.
Medical College authorities said the allegations would be examined, and all admission and discharge records would be verified.
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Karnataka: Indigo disruption forces newlyweds to attend reception online
Hubballi (Karnataka) (PTI): The venue was all decked up and a delicious spread ready for the invitees. But Megha Ksheerasagar and Sangam Das could not be present for their own wedding reception, thanks to the national flight disruptions that has sent many passengers across the country into a tizzy.
The newlyweds' reception was fixed here on December 3, but the couple was forced to attend their grand event only via video conference due to the disruptions in top carrier Indigo's operations, mainly due to crew woes.
Not meaning to miss the important day, the couple appeared on a large screen at the venue through video conferencing from Bhubaneswar, greeted the guests and apologised for not being personally present.
Instead, the bride's parents graced the occasion at the scheduled reception venue--Gujarat Bhavan, here, on behalf of the couple that had tied the knot on November 23 in Odisha's Bhubaneswar.
According to the family, the couple, both software engineers, work in Bengaluru. The reception was arranged at the bride's native place in Hubballi on Wednesday.
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To be part of their special day, the couple had booked tickets on the Bhubaneswar-Bengaluru-Hubballi route for December 2. Some relatives had booked tickets on the Bhubaneswar-Mumbai-Hubballi route. However, due to operational disruptions, IndiGo flights were continuously delayed from 9 am on December 2 until early morning on December 3, and were eventually cancelled.
"My daughter's wedding happened on November 23 and we had organised a reception at our native place in Hubballi for people here. The flight kept getting delayed and at the last moment, at around 4 am, it got cancelled. Now what could we do after that. We had to come up with some solution. Then I decided to do the reception online. I immediately arranged for a screen and asked my daughter and son-in-law to join the reception online," the bride's father Anil Kumar Ksheerasagar told PTI Videos.
He urged the central government to take corrective measures so that public, being the tax payers, don't suffer.
"What the problem with IndiGo is, we don't know. My daughter and son-in-law were supposed to come via an IndiGo flight but that got cancelled. IndiGo alone can't be blamed. The government must understand that it is in case of emergencies that people prefer flights. Some measures need to be taken to resolve this issue. When the PM's flight gets cancelled, he is taken by helicopter. Why is the same not done for us, the common people. We also have emergencies, don't we. The government must think of this, and if they ignore public woes, they should remember that we are also VIPs because we pay tax."
Relatives had come for the reception from across the country--Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bagalkote, Davangere and Belagavi.
"I didn't know what to do as relatives and guests had come from so many places. I was stressed, but then I quickly decided to do it online," Ksheerasagar said.
As the couple could not travel to Hubballi, the bride's parents sat in place of the newly-weds at the reception venue and conducted the rituals, while the bride and groom, dressed up in Bhubaneswar, attended their grand reception online.
