Odisha’s shame: Namtara firing victims asked to vacate hospital

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Cuttack, Mar 18:

As if the indiscriminate firing by the police was not enough, the people of Namatara village in Odisha’s Kendrapara district injured in the on March 8 have now been asked by the authorities of the SCB Medical College and Hospital to vacate the ward at the earliest.

Though the doctors have extracted bullets from various parts of the bodies of the patients, they are in no mood to admit that these were bullets. They say that the extracted objects can be identified only after a test.

On the other hand, the desperate state government, which had earlier claimed that there was no police firing at the villagers, has asked the doctors to discharge the ailing patients immediately.

On Monday, the doctors had extracted two bullets from the right thigh of Bengalata Jena, a female patient of the village. However, Emergency Officer of the hospital Dr Bhubanananda Maharana said the test of the object extracted from the body of the patients would confirm whether it was a bullet or some other object.

While the doctors have claimed that there was no need to extract two bullets from Rashmita Jena, another patient, they have refused to extract a bullet from the left thigh of another patient Sasmita Jena, which, they said might result in a paralytic attack.

“Though my wife is still having excruciating pain, the doctors have decided to discharge her from the hospital today,” Sasmita’s husband Baburam Jena told reporters here.

In their report, the doctors have said there was no bullet found in the body of Debasmita Jena and Manmath Jena. The reports said the bullet had bruised past the ear of Debasmita while the bullet has escaped through the lower abdomen of Manmath.

Earlier, the doctors had extracted bullets from the body of Rita Jena and Purnima Mallick.

It may be mentioned that the police had opened fire at them while they were trying to ransack a licensed liquor shop on the outskirts of their village on March 8.

Nine villagers, who had sustained bullet injuries, were admitted to the SCB Hospital in Cuttack in the evening.