Morena (Madhya Pradesh): A heart-wrenching incident of an eight-year-old boy having to sit for hours by the roadside with the body of his younger brother on his lap as his impoverished father went to search for a vehicle at a cheaper rate to take the body to his village.
The incident took place on Saturday in the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh. Poojaram Jatav, a resident of Badfra village of Ambah tehsil of Morena, brought his two-year-old son Raja (name changed) to the district hospital. The child suffering from anaemia and other ailments was referred from Ambah hospital.
Jatav along with Raja and his elder brother Prem (name changed) arrived in an ambulance at the district hospital in Morena where Raja died during treatment. But by then the ambulance went back. Jatav said that when he approached the doctors and staff at the district hospital for a vehicle to take the child's body to the village they refused by claiming that there is no vehicle available at the hospital and asked him to rent a vehicle on his own.
Later, an ambulance driver asked for Rs 1500 to take the body to the village but Jatav did not have so much money with him. Unable to find a vehicle inside the hospital premises, Jatav made his 8-year-old son Prem sit on the roadside in front of Nehru Park and kept the body of the younger son in his lap, and went out for an affordable vehicle.
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The child sat for several hours with his younger brother's dead body in his lap eagerly waiting for his father's return. Locals said that sometimes he started crying and sometimes he would caress his brother's body. Upon receiving information about the incident, Kotwali Police in-charge Yogendra Singh Jadaun reached the spot and picked up the body of Prem's brother from his lap, and took him to the district hospital. Later, when Jatav reached the spot, an ambulance was arranged and the body was taken to Badfra village.
"I have four children, three sons and a daughter of whom Raja was the youngest. My wife went to her parent's home three months ago, since then I am taking care of my children," said Jatav.
Meanwhile, lashing out at the State government, state Congress chief and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath tweeted "In Morena, an 8-year-old innocent child was sitting in the hospital with the body of his 2-year-old younger brother. His father Shri Poojaram Jatav kept pleading for an ambulance to take the son's body to the village, but he did not get an ambulance for a dead body for hours."
Nath demanded to know from Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan why there is a dearth of ambulances in the State. "When people saw this pathetic scene, after the locals' intervention, the police provided an ambulance. I want to know from the Hon'ble Chief Minister why cases of non-availability of ambulances keep coming up in Madhya Pradesh at regular intervals," tweeted Nath.
He further alleged that even when a large number of people were dying in the State during the pandemic, the Chief Minister was busy suppressing the death toll. "Thousands of people died due to lack of treatment. But even at that time, instead of helping people, you were busy hiding the figures of death and disease," tweeted Nath.
