Bhubaneswar, June 13 (IANS) The toll in the tragic triple train accident in Odisha's Balasore on Tuesday rose to 289 with the death of a man from Bihar while undergoing treatment, an official said.
Bijay Paswan, from Bihar's Motihari district, succumbed to his injuries at SCB Medical College and Hospital.
Paswan, along with six others, had boarded the Coromandel Express on June 2 from Howrah to visit Kerala's Palakkad. While one of them had died at the accident spot, another died today.
He was initially admitted to the Balasore district headquarter hospital and then shifted to the central ICU of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack with cervical spine injury and quadriplegia.
"The health condition of Paswan was stable when he was admitted at the hospital. However, his condition gradually deteriorated and yesterday, when his oxygen level started falling, we put him on a ventilator. Medicines given to raise his blood pressure too. Despite all efforts, he could not survive and passed away due to cardiac arrest," Professor Sudhanshu Sekhar Mishra, superintendent, SCB Medical College, said.
He also informed that the condition of another three people under treatment at the hospital is critical.
Kidneys of two other persons are not functioning properly while the brain of another was operated upon and his lungs also not functioning properly, said Mishra.
After the process of identification is over, the bodies will be brought to Ghazipur. On January 16, family members of the four youths were sent to Kathmandu by road with head of Chak Jainab village Vijay Jaiswal, nayab tehsildar and a revenue inspector to claim and bring back the bodies.
Also on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on the occasion of Parakram Jayanti and said: "Today, on Parakram Diwas, I pay homage to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and recall his unparalleled contribution to India's history."
Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema and Health Minister Balbir Singh said the inauguration program would be held in Amritsar on January 27. The Chief Minister will inaugurate the clinics, while AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will attend the programme as the chief guest.
A police official said that during normal checking of vehicles on Sunday night in Imphal, two persons were apprehended and the drugs, smuggled from Myanmar, were recovered from their procession. The drug peddlers, identified as Md. Abdul Salam and Md. Wasim Akram, have been arrested under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
The bodies of a married couple and their two children, aged three and 11, were found metres from the border on Jan. 19, 2022. Investigators have said they believe the deaths were linked to a human smuggling operation, and a man charged in the U.S. is to stand trial later this year.
A video showing the woman's ordeal has gone viral on social media in which she is seen lying on the ground in a public place. The incident took place on Thursday and the woman, identified as Kalpana, was "turned back without check-up".
