Welfare officer Prafulla Kumar Roy talks to Shariful (in bed) at his house in Malda. Picture by Surajit Roy.

The report that appeared in The Telegraph

Malda, Feb. 17: Four years after Sariful Sheikh fell off a power transmission tower, the government has come to his aid and is making all arrangements for his treatment following a report that appeared in The Telegraph.

Yesterday afternoon, the Malda district magistrate’s office received a message from the chief minister’s secretariat wanting a status report within 24 hours. The message said after reading the report in The Telegraph on February 17, the chief minister was much concerned about the health of the youth.

Copies of the letter were also sent to the district health and social welfare departments.

Sariful had written to the chief minister seeking his permission to end his life, as he had become a burden on his family of day labourers. The 24-year-old youth had fallen about 40 feet from the tower in Bihar in 2004. Since then, the family has been drained financially. Sariful’s father is a day labourer and so are his two brothers who are working in Delhi.

Today, the district social welfare officer Prafulla Kumar Roy and a team of officers visited Sariful’s home, barely 8km from the town. Yesterday, the deputy chief medical officer of health, Debashis Haldar, had also gone there to prepare a report on Sariful’s health.

In a reply sent to the chief minister’s secretariat, the district administration has endorsed the newspaper report and has said the family is too poor to provide treatment. According to the medical report, the fractured pelvis that Sariful has suffered had caused nerve damage that had paralysed the youth from waist downwards. The youth had also developed bed sores.

According to Malda district magistrate Sridhar Ghosh, the social welfare department will now pay a monthly sum of Rs 500 to Sariful as disability pension.

The social welfare officer said Sariful would be taken to the district hospital tomorrow in an ambulance. “The young man is suffering because of lack of treatment and his family members have no objection to his being treated in the district hospital. However, they said that they have no money to make daily visits,” Roy said.

The district magistrate said the family would also be given free foodgrain to tide over their hard times. “We are also looking into how the youth can be helped by the chief minister and Prime Minister’s relief funds,” Ghosh said.

The deputy chief medical officer of health said the first concern of the physicians would be to tackle the bed sores. “We will ensure there is a proper treatment,” Haldar said.