Mumbai: Leptospirosis killed Dharavi teen, reveals post-mortem report

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Even as family members of the 17-year-old Dharavi boy want the policemen, who tortured him, behind bars, the post-mortem report has confirmed that he was suffering from leptospirosis and succumbed to it.

Doctors at Sion hospital said he had contracted the bacterial infection, which had later spread to his liver and kidneys. "The patient had developed leptospirosis; since his admission, he was given treatment for it," said dean Dr Jayashree Monkar. However, BMC Executive Health Officer Dr Padmaja Keskar said they hadn't received any report of leptospirosis from the hospital.

Dr Monkar explained, "The reports take some time to confirm, as they come from Kasturba Hospital. We got them on Saturday night; hence, we couldn't inform BMC about it. Also, we don't wait for reports to come to start treatment; we take the symptoms into account."

The teenager's body was sent to JJ hospital for a post-mortem, but it got delayed by several hours, as most of his relatives were outside Sion hospital protesting, and no one turned up at JJ hospital as a witness to enable the police in doing his panchnama. When mid-day visited JJ, an officer said, "No one has come to the hospital for his identification, so we have to wait for his panchnama. This will delay the post-mortem; we don't want to take any more blame." At 5 pm, the deceased's father went to the hospital, after which the formalities and procedures were completed.

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