Now, 2 women die at Patna home for differently abled following ‘illness’

Amid claims of medical negligence, two young women died after brief illness at a government funded shelter home for differently abled in Bihar’s Patna on Friday evening, police said.

Naushma alias Babli, 40, and Poonam Bharti, 18, living at ‘Aasra Grih’ in Rajeev Nagar, were suffering from high fever and acute diarrhoea, respectively, said Manisha Dayal, treasurer of the Anumaya Human Resources Foundation, the NGO running the shelter home.

Police had arrested a neighbour, Nagina Singh alias Bajrani, 55, for allegedly trying to lure four inmates to elope with him.

Shelters in Bihar are in the news after 34 minor girls at a ‘Balika Grih’ in Muzaffarpur were found to have been raped. Eleven girls are reported missing from a ‘Swadhar Grih’ in Muzaffarpur, while a girl also went missing from Madhubani shelter home.

Dayal, however, claimed there was no foul play in this case. She claimed that the two women were under treatment for the past 3-4 days, although she could not remember the name of the physician treating the two women.

“The doctor had advised a series of blood tests, after which medicine was prescribed that we provided to them,” she claimed.

By Dayal’s admission, the two women had not been given medicine on Friday, as all shelter home employees were at the Rajeev Nagar police station after some neighbours made a bid to free the girls earlier in the day. HTC