Blast survivor cries for Govt support
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 15 2020:
Laishram Medhabati of Kwakeithel Moirang Purel is one of the many bomb blast victims who have been left to their own horrible fate without any assistance from the Government.
Laishram Medhabati (53) sustained injuries in the spinal cord when a powerful bomb went off at the temporary market shed of Khwairamband Keithel on March 11, 2015 .
The blast left her 90 per cent crippled.
She is now confined to a wheel chair and needs help of another person even for defecation and urination.
Laishram Medhabati is an LLB graduate and she once worked as an office assistant in a private school.
However, after the bomb blast all her means of livelihood has been curtailed.
Laishram Medhabati said that she visited Chief Minister N Biren on a Meeyamgi Numit on July 15, 2017 and narrated her pathetic situation.
She also submitted a written representation.
"The Chief Minister signed on my written petition with a note 'suitable post to the kin of the victim of bomb blast' and I was told to take the petition to the Additional Chief Secretary (Home)", Medhabati said.
After a gap of around one year, Medhabati received a reply from the Government which said 'not a fit case for appointment...' .
In the aftermath of the bomb blast, Medhabati received ex-gratia of Rs two lakh but she insisted that she now needs compensation very badly.
She asked whether the Government should not assess pain, trauma, economic woes, social discrimination and other problems suffered by surviving victims of bomb blasts.
Notably, three people were killed in the particular bomb blast while 24 other people sustained injuries.
Recalling the horrible incident which changed her life for good, Medhabati said that she and her husband were buying vegetables at the temporary market when she heard a thundering sound.
"In the next moment, I felt like both my legs had been severed.
At RIMS, it was learnt that a shrapnel was stuck on my spinal cord", Medhabati said.
The shrapnel was removed through surgical operation at Raj Medicity and her family had to spend around Rs 4 lakh for the operation.
It was only after further treatment at Vellore that Medhabati was able to sit on a wheelchair.
But she is totally numb below the chest.
Below the chest she feels neither pain, neither coldness nor heat.
She does not feel anything even at the time of defecation or urination.
She uses catheter for urination.
Even though doctors advised her not to use a catheter for more than a week, she has been using one catheter for 15 days for she has no money to buy catheters every week.
Medhabati's husband Gojendro said that he has been doing all the household chores which were earlier done by her and it leaves little time for him to earn money.