Chhatra Congress Activists Hurl Eggs At Odisha Health Min House Over Hi-Tech Tragedy

Bhubaneswar: Chhatra Congress activists staged demonstration and hurled eggs at Odisha Health Minister Niranjan Pujari’s official quarters in Bhubaneswar on Monday, demanding immediate arrest of Hi-Tech hospital owner Tirupati Panigrahi over identity mix-up fiasco amid death of three of the four technicians injured in the December 29 evening blast.

“The state government is trying to protect him since he is a BJD leader. We demand his arrest, cancellation of licence of the medical college-cum-hospital and Rs 50 lakh compensation each to the kin of the deceased,” Syed Yashir Nawaz, president of NSUI Odisha, told reporters.

The protestors also scuffled with police while attempting barge into the minister’s quarters, following which, over 15 Chhatra Congress activists were taken into preventive custody.

They have threatened to gherao Naveen Niwas if the demands are not met.

The identity mix up of the victims of the blast had led to a chain of events while exposing the shoddy identification procedure adopted by the hospital authorities and police. Dilip Samantaray, who sustained critical burns in a compressor explosion and was thought to have succumbed, following which his wife died by suicide out of grief, was found to be alive and under treatment on January 4. He, however, suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away early on Saturday, January 6, within hours after being taken off ventilator and revealing his true identity.

While his family was left completely shattered by his demise for the second time in a week, the goof-up also came as a shock for Jyoti Ranjan Mallick, who had instead died on December 30.

Hospital CEO Dr Smita Padhi said, the injured persons were initially identified by an employee of the third party agency, which had supplied them ACs. Their family members were in constant touch with the patients when they were admitted to the ICU. Forensic science experts, however, said the hospital did not follow the protocol of identifying charred persons. “A third party can identify a person at the time of hospital admission. But hospitals and police, in case of medico-legal cases, must ensure the correct identity while declaring someone dead or handing over the bodies. A DNA profiling should be made mandatory for disfigured bodies in case of burn injury or fatal accidents to prevent such mix-up identity issues further,” Medical superintendent of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar told TNIE.