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Kasargod: The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of a 19-year-old during a short trip to Mangaluru and the lies narrated by his friends has made a Kerala couple write to Union home minister Amit Shah, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Mangaluru police commissioner N Shashi Kumar, and Kasaragod collector Bhandari Swagat Ranveerchand and to Kasaragod police, Kerala Women’s Commission, the Congress, and the BJP seeking justice for their son.
The deceased is identified as Suryajith (19), son of Rameshan and Shobha of Molothumgal in Badadka.
On September 1, one of Suryajith’s friends decided to travel to Mangaluru to collect his degree certificate from the college. Rahul was joined by Suryajith, Swaroop (24) and Mithun Nair (20).
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Having arrived in the city they went to their friend Shakil’s house. Suryajith complained of body ache but they presumed that it was because of the bike ride.
As per a TNIE report, Suryajith’s mother said that she had spoken to her son at around 8 pm on September 1 and the next morning whereafter his phone was switched off.
On September 2, the friends were supposed to head back to their homes but Suryajith’s fever shot up and he started shivering, said Swaroop and Mithun. As Shakil was employed at a doctor’s clinic they called the doctor and on his advise gave him glucose water. However as Suryajith threw up the food served at lunch they panicked and decided to go to a hospital. They first went to the clinic where Shakeel worked where the doctor advised them to shifted Suryajit to a private hospital.
Meanwhile they kept Suryajit’s condition a secret from his mother when she called to enquire about her son. Shobha claimed that his friends lied initially saying that they were out shopping while Suryajit stayed back in the room and on yet another call they said he had gone out to buy food.
The report quoting Swaroop says that they were lying as they they thought it was just fever and did not want to panic the family.
But soon, the private hospital recommended that he be shifted to Father Muller Medical College in the city. “In the first hospital, the doctors found there was blood clotting in the brain and administered an injection but the doctors at Father Muller diagnosed it as bleeding and not clotting,” said Swaroop. “We think the wrong injection must have caused the damage,” he said.
When the doctors informed them that Suryajith’s platelet counts were dangerously low, the friends contacted his family and informed them about his condition.
The parents, in the report, claim that they got a call stating that Suryajith was hospitalised for dengue fever at 10 pm on September 2 but his friends claim they did not mention dengue fever as they were unaware of the problem and believe that the family might have guessed it was dengue fever as they were told about low platelet count.
The hospital authorities later contacted Rameshan for permission to shift Suryajith to the ventilator from the ICU. At this point, the family decided to go to Mangaluru and reached the hospital around 3 am after which Suryajith was shifted to the ventilator. The next day he died.
The father pointed at other discrepancies, such as the wrong address mentioned in hospital records and their claim on spending Rs 37,000 at the private hospital where Suryajith was initially admitted but upon checking with the hospital it was found that they had spent only around Rs 2,000.
Mithun attributed the hospital expense discrepancy to a communication error saying the first hospital said the rent would be Rs 37,000 if an ICU bed was taken. “It must have been a communication error because we were all tense,” he said adding that the Ernakulam address was given by Shakil to keep the family out of it.
The parents further say that they did not get the shorts and T-shirt worn by their son back and the shirt, trousers worn by him were returned after a laundry. Mithun said the shorts and T-shirt were thrown after Suryajit threw up the lunch.
Though few people’s representatives in Bedadka and parents of Swaroop and Mithun have asked Suryajit’s parents to have a postmortem done Rameshan owing to the mental state he was in at that time did not permit the same.
In her petition, Shobha says she does not have the financial resources to get to the bottom of what happened in Mangaluru and is seeking a thorough investigation into the matter.
Swaroop says that the lies they narrated to keep the family from panicking are now haunting them and most of the residents have their own version of what might have happened that day.