Kanpur : A distraught woman, whose young son bled to death after he allegedly could not be taken to hospital in time due to road blockades erected during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit, has asked Sonia Gandhi to ensure that a similar tragedy does not befall anyone else in future.
"No mother should go through the same tragedy," a weeping Usha Sharma said on Friday after she wrote a letter to the Congress president in which she also sought a compensation of Rs 10 lakh.
Usha and her husband Tashadud Hussain alleged that they were stopped from taking their only child, eight-year-old Aman, who sustained serious head injuries after falling from a height at their home, to hospital by security personnel who had barricaded all major roads here for the Prime Minister's visit to Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) on July 3.
The couple, residents of Shyam Nagar locality, claimed that though they requested security persons to allow them to commute through Coca-Cola crossing which had been barricaded due to security curbs, they were asked to take a longer route to the nearest hospital. A five-minute journey to the hospital was reported to have taken about 30 minutes.
Aman, a student of Class II, bled to death on his way to the hospital, the family said.
In her letter to Gandhi, written on July 6, Sharma has requested the UPA Chairperson to make sure that in future security forces do not stop the injured from being taken to hospitals.
Additional District Magistrate Shailendra Kumar Singh told PTI that some roads had been closed on July 3 in view of the Prime Minister's visit to IIT in the city. An inquiry has been ordered into the incident, he said. Hussain said a fax has been sent to the prime minister drawing his attention to the incident.
"This kind of thing should not happen to anyone else. If there is a situation like this again, people should be allowed to go for medical treatment and the police should help them," he said.
Congress today tendered its unqualified apology over the incident, even as the Special Protection Group (SPG) that guards VVIPs made the ridiculous claim that no vehicle is stopped for more than 5 to 10 minutes for the VVIP to pass. It has been and continues to be the woe of common people that traffic is cordoned off a well half an hour before a VVIP's carcade passes.
A similar incident about the death of a patient while going to PGIMER in Chandigarh had taken place in November last year during the PM's visit. The Prime Minister's Office had to personally convey its apology to the family.
Congress on Friday described the death of Aman as "sad" and hoped such incidents are not repeated. "It is a sad incident. The security agencies of the Central and the state governments should be more sensitive and work to ensure that such incidents are not repeated," party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed told reporters here.
