Another fatality has been reported due to the Karnataka government’s decision to stop vehicles from Kerala, including those carrying critically ill patients to hospitals in Mangaluru.
The latest victim was 70-year-old Pathunjii who lived just one kilometre away from the Kerala-Karnataka border in Talappady. This was the second such case in as many days.
According to the media reports, Pathunji, who hailed from Bantwal in Karnataka, came to her granddaughter’s house in Udyavar near Manjeswaram (the place is just one kilometre away from the border) recently. She could not get back to her home because of the lockdown.
On Sunday, she developed health complications. However, she could not get emergency health care as the Karnataka police stopped the ambulance carrying her to a hospital in Mangaluru at the border.
Ambulance driver Mohammed Aslam said the police did not heed his repeated requests. “My pleas fell on deaf ears,” he said.
A video clip of the police sending back the ambulance is doing rounds on social media.
The first such death happened on Saturday. Police had stopped the vehicle carrying Abdul Hameed, 60, at the border, who later died due to breathing difficulties. On March 27, the wife of a migrant labourer from Bihar delivered her baby in an ambulance after Karnataka police stopped the vehicle at the border.
