The girl was admitted to the Medical College after she was found unconscious on a school campus in a village of Salepur on Saturday. (Representational)
A six-year-old girl, who was raped and strangled on a school campus in Odisha’s Cuttack district on April 21, has slipped into coma and continues to remain critical, said doctors at SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, where the child is undergoing treatment.
“The girl has been put on a ventilator…The strangulation has significantly damaged her respiratory system. There are multiple injuries on her head and neck,” said Dr Shyama Kanungo, Superintendent of the SCB Medical College and Hospital.
While doctors declined to comment if the girl’s condition could be expected to improve, the Medical College authorities said a team comprising paediatricians, psychiatrists, orthopaedics and surgeons was monitoring the child’s progress.
“Her pupils have started responding to light. Her coma score has climbed to 6/15 from 5/15,” said Kanungo, while referring to the Glasgow Coma Scale – a neurological indicator of a patient’s state of consciousness. The 6/15 score means the girl can perform basic commands.
The girl was admitted to the Medical College after she was found unconscious on a school campus in a village of Salepur on Saturday. The minor was allegedly raped and strangled by her neighbour, who was later arrested and sent to judicial custody, police said.
The rape and assault of the minor girl, which comes in the backdrop of the Unnao and Kathua rape cases, has triggered a furor across the state with the Opposition demanding a statement from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is also in-charge of the Home department.
Speaking on behalf of the chief minister, Odisha’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh told the legislative assembly on Tuesday: “Rape cases, considered as Red Flag Cases, have special lawyers and warrant immediate police action. The accused has been arrested.”
A government statement tabled in the assembly on Tuesday reveal that conviction rate for rape in Odisha in 2017 stood at only 17 per cent.
Meanwhile, the distraught parents of the minor girl have not moved from the hospital ever since she was brought here. The girl’s uncle said the 25-year-old accused was their neighbour and had also joined the family and the villagers in the two-hour-long search for the girl after she went missing. “He even accompanied the ambulance on a bike, with one of my other brothers,” he said.
The child’s aunt told The Indian Express that the child had almost bitten her tongue off, probably while screaming, during the assault. “That man banged her head on the school wall repeatedly to kill her,” she said.