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credit: bbc.com]
It was in November 27, 1973 when then 25 years old Aruna Shanbaug was
on duty as a junior nurse at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Parel, Mumbai when she was brutally sodomized by
a ward boy that goes by the name of Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki. Aruna was strangled
by her assailant using a dog chain cutting off oxygen supply to her brain and leaving her in a vegetative state and cortically blind since then. Her unconscious
body was discovered in the hospital basement by a cleaner the next day splattered
all over with blood.
Her assailant was charged not of the case of rape or sodomy but of robbery and
attempted murder. The facts of the case were concealed by the complainants maybe to avoid social
rejection of the young nurse. Walmiki was sentenced to double seven-year term
in prison and was suspected to have changed his identity in order to hide from the public eye.
Aruna
since then was lying in a hospital bed in vegetative state. And for over 42
years, hospital staff took turn watching over her and keeping her alive. In December,
2010, Aruna's case caught the attention of Pinki Virani, an activist-journalist who sought the medical condition of Aruna from the
hospital to plead euthanasia for her case to India’s Supreme Court. Under the Court’s directive, Aruna’s medical condition
was affirmed being that of a permanent vegetative case. But in February of
2014, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court have observed some wrong
interpretation and inconsistencies in the judgement of Aruna’s case based
on the constitution leading to the rejection of the euthanasia plea.
In the early days of May this year, Aruna developed pneumonia and was later moved to the intensive care unit of the hospital and put on a ventilator. She died last May 18 freeing her body from the almost perpetual pain and darkness for over 42 years. A moment she probably have wanted despite what her body have endured for so long. Go forth Aruna! There'll be no more pain and darkness for you to wherever you will go through from hereon.
In the early days of May this year, Aruna developed pneumonia and was later moved to the intensive care unit of the hospital and put on a ventilator. She died last May 18 freeing her body from the almost perpetual pain and darkness for over 42 years. A moment she probably have wanted despite what her body have endured for so long. Go forth Aruna! There'll be no more pain and darkness for you to wherever you will go through from hereon.
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