by reciprocal arrangement with Star of Mysore
- Girl survives, help pours in, B'lore hospital offers free treatment
Lucknow, July 11: A heart-rending incident of a seven-year-old girl being thrown into a river by her father, unable to bear the brunt of poverty, but still surviving, has been reported from Uttar Pradesh.
The hapless father was returning to Juanpur from Mumbai by train on Monday and when the train was passing on the bridge across Gomati river, he reportedly threw his daughter Sarita into the river.
The heart-rending cries of the girl 'papa, mujhe bachao' (father, save me) was heard by few fishermen who rushed in a boat and saved her from drowning. The little girl was handed over to the Juanpur Police.
Sarita is suffering from renal failure. Her father Bakher Sonker is a vegetable vendor in Mumbai. Sarita was staying with her father for the last five months in Mumbai and she was under treatment since three years.
Sonker was shattered when the doctors told him that a kidney transplant would cost about Rs. 3 lakh to Rs. 4 lakh. Other than Sarita, he has five more children. He might have decided amid pain out of sheer desperation to eliminate the sick Sarita.
"My Papa used to love me a lot. I do not know why he threw me into the river. The doctor demanded Rs. 4 lakh from my Papa," said Sarita in her kiddish accent to a reporter of a private TV Channel.
As this heart-rending incident was being telecast on the TV Channel, hundreds of viewers started messaging offering help. Geetha Agarwal of Chennai has offered one of her kidneys for Sarita.
Hospital assures
After watching the scene on TV, the Bangalore-based Manipal Hospital Director Dr. Sudarshan Ballal told the Channel that he would examine the child and offer free treatment.
"We have a charitable trust to care for the poor. With its assistance even the cost of renal transplantation can be met", he said.
Philanthropists who want to offer help to Sarita can contact Juanpur Police Superintendent Rajesh Rai (Ph: 0941-5903070).
Speaking to Star of Mysore last night, Rai said "we are bound to save the child and it is our duty. To avoid the menace of middlemen, we have got joint account opened in the name of Sarita and her mother. I am also a father of two daughters and I can understand the family's pain".