The nine-year-old boy who was injured during a stampede on December 4 last year at the premiere of Allu Arjun-starrer Pushpa 2 at Sandhya Theatre in Hyderabad, and remained unconscious in a hospital for several months, regained consciousness recently and has since been discharged from hospital.
On Thursday, the first anniversary of the incident in which his mother died, he was admitted to a rehabilitation centre near in Secunderabad after efforts to provide care at home resulted in further deterioration of his health. The boy, who was a student of Gautam Model School and was nine years old at the time of the incident, turned 10 on October 3. He regained consciousness a few days after his 10th birthday, and he was released from hospital a few days later, his father M Bhaskar told The Indian Express.
“My son has regained only 5-10% of his health. He has not regained any functions — he cannot speak, cannot move, cannot eat… He cannot do anything on his own. He does not respond to verbal commands. I had high hopes that he would recover quickly when recently my daughter talked or sang in front of him for about an hour and he managed a faint smile, but things deteriorated after that,” Bhaskar said.
He said he quit his job as a salesperson at a jewellery store because his son needs him 24/7. “We feed him through a tube… Mostly protein shakes, dal water, ragi water… Once, when we tried to feed him directly, the food went into his lungs. He has to be given medicines every 2-3 hours, fed every 2-3 hours,” Bhaskar said.
He said the compensation the family received was converted into a fixed deposit and that they were surviving from the interest they get from this.
“For several days, the physio and rehabilitation care being provided at home have not been working. I started taking him to a rehabilitation centre by booking a cab daily. Today, on the first anniversary of the incident in which my wife died, and my boy has been left severely injured, Allu Arjun’s team agreed to take care of all the expenses and admit my son to the rehabilitation centre. Arjun and his team have been very helpful through our ordeal,” the father said.
Besides bearing the treatment expenses, Arjun and his team are providing financial support to the family, Bhaskar said.
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On his own well-being, Bhaskar said he did not have the time to think about it. “I am more worried about my daughter. She was eight when we lost her mother, and she turned nine on November 1. She becomes silent for several days, which speaks for itself. She does not even talk to me and lives in her own world. I try to take her out to a nearby park where we live in Dilsukhnagar, and she livens up a bit, but after we return home, she goes back into her shell. I am thinking of approaching someone to provide professional counselling to her,” he said.
The family of four, including Bhasker, his wife M Revathi, and their two children, had booked tickets to watch Pushpa 2 on its premiere on December 4 last year. When Allu Arjun arrived at the venue, there was a stampede that caused Revathi’s death and severely injured the boy. Arjun was arrested in the case on December 13 and was granted bail the same day, but spent a night at Chanchalguda Jail as the bail order was delivered late.
On January 7, after police rejected permission several times, citing law and order issues, Arjun was granted permission to visit the boy, who, his father said, is a great fan of the Pushpa actor.
Arjun visited the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) to check on the boy, who was unconscious at the time, and remained by his side for several minutes.