JNU boy dies of asthma attack, students cry foul

NEW DELHI: A 23-year-old student of Jawaharlal Nehru University died following an asthma attack on the campus on Wednesday. Aishvarya Agarwal, a first-year student of MTech at the School of Information Technology (SIT), was rushed to AIIMS by his fellow students around 10.30 in the night where he passed away. 

The students at SIT claimed that had the health centre on the campus remained open, it would have been easier to save Aishvarya. Vikram Singh, a research scholar at SIT, said, "The health centre on the campus closes at 9pm. So a couple of students from his batch and a few seniors took him to AIIMS in the university ambulance The so-called ambulance did not even have an oxygen cylinder.'' The victim was at SIT when he suffered the attack.

According to the students, the campus was not ready to tackle any emergency situation. "Emergencies don't happen according to the timings of the health centre. We did not even know that there was a doctor on the campus who could be approached in such a situation. The administration has never informed us about it,'' Singh said. Hailing from Gorakhpur, Aishvarya joined the university only in August. According to the fellow students, he suffered from chronic asthma.

The students carried out a candle-light march on Thursday and have demanded that the JNU administration makes a health centre functional 24/7 and also provide two well-equipped ambulances with a paramedic. JNU vice-chancellor B B Bhattacharya agreed that the varsity needed to upgrade its medical facilities. He, however, refused to comment on what went wrong with the deceased student.

He said, "It's an unfortunate case but I am still to get the medical report and also the report on what really happened. So it will be premature for me to say anything.'' However, he added, "We have been pleading with the UGC for long to give us a proper health centre with more doctors. But they always declined on grounds of lack of funds and other things. Probably, the UGC will heed our request after this incident.''

Meanwhile, the students at SIT have pledged to keep lighting at least one candle every day till their demands are met. They said Aishvarya was a brilliant student and scored 95% in his BTech from Allahabad Agriculture University.

indianachu - 05