Solapur man on bus grievously injured by stone pelters five years ago dies

KOLHAPUR: On June 2, 2014, Vasant Ramchandra Roopnar was travelling by bus when he was hit by a stone during a communal clash at Katraj. He suffered a serious head injury and was paralysed as a result. On Thursday, almost five years later, the 50-year-old breathed his last at his native village of Chikmahud, in Sangola taluka of Solapur district.
On that fateful day, Vasant, who worked as a truck driver in Mumbai, was going by bus to his native place to attend the marriage of a relative. He was sitting by the window when he was hit. The stone-pelting was the result of a communal clash that erupted after doctored images of Bal Thackeray and Chhatrapati Shivaji went viral on social media. In the violence that followed, IT engineer Mohsin Shaikh was attacked by a mob in Hadapsar in Pune and died.
Sources close to Vasant's family said he was first taken to Sassoon Hospital in Pune. Later he was taken to a private hospital where he underwent a brain surgery. However, Vasant remained paralysed as the surgery was not successful. After a while Vasant was shifted to a government hospital in Solapur, where treatment continued, sources close to Vasant's family said. His family finally took him to Chikmasud village, where he remained bedridden.
Vasant's wife Sakhubai, who looked after him, had told media persons at the time of her husband's discharge from Solapur hospital that she was taking him home for financial reasons. She had said that, except for a few social organizations, nobody had extended financial help to Vasant.