Lokman Mandal, the weight-wonder baby from Murshidabad district in West Bengal, died at the SSKM Hospital today, reportedly after some food got stuck in his throat. Lokman, who weighed 25 kgs at 11 months, had been admitted to the hospital for treatment of his weight.His mother Ganera Bibi said today, for the first time, the doctor had asked her to give solid food to the baby. She had fed him rice, mixed with water, at about 2 pm. Soon after, the baby went to sleep. Twenty minutes later, he went into a paroxysm of hiccups.Ganera alleged that there was no doctor and the nurse put Lokman on oxygen. He died around 4.30 pm. The hospital authorities, however, claim the baby died at 6 pm.Ganera Bibi’s biggest grouse is that she had brought the baby to Kolkata.‘‘He was fine back home. It was our mistake that we took him to the city,’’ she said.She and her husband have requested that the body should not be sent for postmortem. ‘‘As per rules, we have to do the postmortem,’’ said Dr Santanu Tripathi, the superintendent of SSKM hospital. ‘‘However, we are now trying to find the reason for his death by taking a chest X-ray or an MRI scan,’’ he added. Though he was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, the doctors were yet to find out the reason for Lokman’s abnormal weight.‘‘We had formed a medical board to probe the baby’s case. But the doctors did not find out the cause of his abmormal weight,’’ said Dr Tripathi.He also contradicted Lokman’s mother’s statement. ‘‘They were feeding the baby solid foods like rice since yesterday,’’ he said.Lokman weighed 25 kgs. He used to drink 5 litres of milk and eat a kilo of powdered rice daily. Last Wednesday, his parents had taken him to Writers’ Buildings, where he met two ministers.
