Suspense built up around freedom fighter laxmi Indira Panda’s grandson Babula Panda here on Friday when just minutes after he was discharged from the SCB Medical College Hospital, his mother Sujata Panda arrived in the hospital and made a fervent appeal to hand him over to her.
Undergoing treatment at the hospital for over a fortnight after he had reportedly gone missing for about nine days, Babula was discharged from the hospital at around 11 am after treating doctors declared him “fully cured and fit”.
“We discharged the patient in the presence of the local Commissionerate police and a waiting police team from Koraput,” informed Medical College Principal Dr Siddharth Das, adding that a relative of Babula (not mother) was also present when he left the hospital.
But just half an hour after Babula left the hospital escorted by the Koraput police, his mother reached the hospital from Bhubaneswar. learning that the Koraput police have taken away Babula, his mother apprehending more trouble ahead, broke down pleading that the police return back her son.
When contacted, a senior police officer of the city said Babula was handed over to the Koraput police as some cases, including a missing case, are pending against him in Koraput. He said the escort police party has been instructed to intimate his family about his whereabouts.
Babula’s disappearance and his mother boarding a wrong train soon after he along with his parents was felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bhubaneswar on April 16, had triggered a political mudslinging in the State between the ruling BJD and the opposition BJP. Modi had felicitated family members of at least 16 freedom fighters of the State.