External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has responded to an SOS call from SSKM Hospital, Kolkata, that has a 79-year-old German patient who is fit to be discharged but there is no one to pick him up.
Responding to the message about German Holzer Dieter Siegeried, Swaraj said the Indian Government has taken up the matter with the German Embassy in New Delhi.
Dieter was admitted in the hospital with lung infection. He cannot speak English or understand the language. Hospital claimed that they have informed the German Embassy about him that he is cured and fit for discharge but no one has come to receive him. The hospital has asked Government to either urge German Embassy to pick him up or contact some NGO that can send him back to his country.
Meanwhile, Swaraj expres-
sed happiness over the acquittal of Iranian-British aid worker Narges Kalbasi Ashtari by an Odisha Court. Ashtari was convicted in 2014 for alleged negligence resulting in the death of a tribal child. “I am happy Ms Narges Ashtari is acquitted by Court. My friend @JZarif Foreign Minister and people of Iran should be happy and relieved,” Swaraj tweeted.
Ashtari’s NGO Prishan Foundation runs an orphanage at Mukundapur village of Rayagada district in Orissa. In 2014, during a picnic outing by the orphanage, six children got swept away in a river while bathing. Five children were rescued but five-year-old Asim Jilakara’s body was not recovered and he was believed to have been drowned in the river. The parents of the child too were present at the site when the incident took place.
According to reports, Asht-
ari was accused by the police of throwing the boy into the river. She, however, alleged that the police made her an accused since she refused to pay bribes to a local official. She was later convicted by a lower court and had to spend nearly a year in jail before the appeals court acquitted her. Ashtari was barred from leaving India till the time her appeal was pending.
The Iranian Government was constantly pursuing her case with the Indian Govern-
ment and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had raised the matter with Swaraj during their meeting.