Thrissur: Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Sunday visited Edenveetil Avinash of Irinjalakkuda who is undergoing treatment at Mother Hospital here after both his kidneys were damaged as a result of ragging by seniors at Nattakam Government Polytechnic in Kottayam. Mr Chandy held detailed discussions with the ragging victim and his parents. He later told media persons that the state government should bear the treatment expenses of Avanish, who is presently on haemodialysis.
“I want CPM to make its stand clear on ragging. There are news reports that students who are with SFI were behind the torture of Avinash and police have identified them. But, till now they have not been arrested,” Chandy said. Meanwhile, hospital authorities said that the functioning of the victim’s kidneys would be normal after a week-long treatment including dialysis.
As the victim was forced to do severe physical exercise like pull-ups and push-ups for nearly six hours as a part of ragging, it had created a large amount of myoglobin protein in the blood which led to the damage of the kidneys. Chandy was accompanied by DCC president T N Prathapan and other party leaders in the district.
