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Journalism of Courage
A British Indian father has alleged that his son died following a mysterious jab in India,days after another British parents demanded their daughter8217;s organs back from a hospital in Patiala for a post-mortem in the UK.
In the case reminiscent of Birmingham girl Gurkiren Kaur Loyal,whose parents are demanding her organs back from a hospital in Patiala for a post-mortem in Britain,Navtag Herian spoke about how his 10-year-old son Damien died in his arms minutes after being given a mystery injection by a doctor in Jalandhar.
8220;I knew straightaway he8217;d gone. It was like the fit was his last breath and he just lay there in my arms with his mouth slightly open,8221; his father told 8216;Birmingham Mail8217;.
He rushed his son to the nearby Oxford hospital where medics battled in vain to revive the young boy who died on holiday in Punjab back in April 2009.
8220;They tried their best but they couldn8217;t bring him back and I was told I should take the body back to my home village and make funeral preparations,8221; he recalled.
According to the newspaper,Damien8217;s body lay in the morgue at his ancestral village of Herian,while the father battled with red-tape to get his son8217;s body flown back to the UK for a post mortem.
8220;I was adamant that I did not want the post-mortem to be done in India because I was just a bit wary about what they might do to his body. I did not want them cutting it up and I didn8217;t quite trust them,8221; said the father,who was eventually able to bring his son8217;s body back to Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region of England.
However,a post-mortem examination in the UK failed to fully establish a cause of death,because of the strong embalming fluids that had been used on the body to facilitate travel.
8220;The pathologist had to put natural causes as the cause of death but I8217;ll never know what really happened. I did return to India and tried to track down the doctor who had given Damien the injection but he was long gone,8221; said Navtag.
The case is the latest unexplained death of a Briton in the north Indian region since the revelations surrounding the death of eight-year-old Gurkiren Kaur Loyal.
Gurkiren,from Hockley in Birmingham,was being treated for dehydration when she was given an injection which apparently caused her death.
Her parents have alleged that medics deliberately killed Gurkiren in order to harvest her organs,which would then be sold.
Punjab police have started criminal proceedings to find the cause of Gurkiren8217;s death.
