Pune.sept.12: The parents of seven-year-old Avinash Rout jumped to death from the terrace of a four-storey building in South Delhi where they were staying on rent, police said.Just hours earlier, on the night of September 8, Laxmichandra and Babita had buried Avinash after he succumbed to dengue in a Delhi Hospital.
The end came after a traumatic 24 hours when the parents failed to get a bed for their son in two of Delhi’s top hospitals before rushing him to Batra Hospital, said police and the family’s neighbours.
By then, they added, it was too late for the family from Kendrapara in Odisha after a night in hospital, doctors declared Avinash dead at around 1 pm. Police said the heartbroken parents performed the last rites of their son at Chhattarpur that night. Then, at around 2.30 am, neighbours found the bodies of Laxmichandra and Babita inside the compound of a government school nearby, their hands tied together.
On Friday, the couple’s rented accommodation at Building No. M212 in Lado Sarai and found their neighbours still reeling from the events of those 24 hours.
Outside the two-room house in which the family stayed, a yellow cycle that belonged to Avinash or Bittu as he was called at home was propped up against the wall.
“Babita’s left hand and Laxmichandra’s right hand were tied together with a dupatta. Babita was wearing her nightdress, just as she was when we last saw her about an hour before,” said Kavita Sejwal, their landlord.
She added that Laxmichandra was an employee of a private firm that provided services to Pizza Hut outlets, Babita managed the home and Avinash was a Class 1 student at a local school.
The boy was being treated for the last “three-four days” by a doctor at a nursing home nearby, he added. “On September 7, Babita told my wife that the doctor had told her to get her son admitted. But she said he was running around and seemed fine, so she brought him home,” Debashis said.
By evening, however, Avinash started complaining of severe pain, said Dharmo Devi, Sejwal’s mother-in-law. “His body turned cold and he complained of pain. When they were taking him away, he told me ‘Dadi, my head will burst’,” Devi said.
