Rahul, who lived in Ara town’s Jawahar Tola, died on Friday after he had been ailing for a week. His father is a daily wager rendered jobless since the lockdown was imposed.
A day after an 11-year-old boy from the Scheduled Caste community died in Ara at Bihar’s Bhojpur, the local ward councillor and the CPI-ML have called it a “hunger death”, and the district administration has ordered a medical probe.
Rahul, who lived in Ara town’s Jawahar Tola, died on Friday after he had been ailing for a week. His father is a daily wager rendered jobless since the lockdown was imposed. Local ward councillor Satyadev Ram said, “When we visited the family, we did not see any grain there. The boy’s family had not approached us before the boy’s death.”
Bhojpur CPI-ML district secretary Jawaharlal Singh said: “Jawahal Tola is a cluster of 35 scheduled families depending on daily wages. Since there has been lockdown, several people have run short of grains. The boy’s death looks a hunger death.”
Bhojpur District Magistrate Roshan Kushwaha told The Indian Express: “We have spoken to the municipal commissioner, who denied that any chance of hunger death…”
Meanwhile, Muzaffarpur’s SKM College and Hospital has reported two cases of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES). Both patients, a five-year-old boy and a three-and-a half-year-old girl, come from poor families. As the disease is linked to malnutrition, it has raised some concerns for the district administration.
SKMCH medical superintendent Dr D K Shahi said, “Both cases were admitted on Friday. The first was admitted with a very low sugar levels, suggesting malnutrition… The patient was referred from a Motihari hospital. The boy, also from poor background, is in a much better condition.”
Source: The Indian Express
