“Her mother had come over and was handed over the body at around 4.30 PM. They then left the premises for the cremation,” Deepak Agrawal, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at
the AIIMS Trauma Centre, who has been attending on Falak from the day she was admitted there, said.
Falak was being monitored by the Child Welfare Committee, and the officials had asked for an inquiry on her death. That could take till tomorrow to complete.
Falak was introduced to India under circumstances that made the country sick with anger. She was brought to AIIMS by a young teen who had been looking after her. Her face had been bitten, her head had repeatedly been smashed into a wall, and her chest showed burn marks from a hot clothes iron. The nurses who tended to her at the Intensive Care Unit named her Falak meaning “the sky.” In recent weeks, doctors had said Falak was showing healthy signs of recovery and was strong enough to leave hospital. But because nobody requested them for her custody, she was moved to the general ward. Yesterday, her heart beat fluctuated all day. Then last evening, she had a heart attack. “It happened all of a sudden. She was sleeping in her bed when the cardiac arrest occurred,” Dr Agrawal said.
Two earlier cardiac arrests had weakened her heart greatly. For 40 minutes, doctors tried to revive her. Finally, they gave up. “Since hers (Falak) was a medico-legal case, a post-morterm was conducted. The cardiac arrest happened due to due cardiac arrhythmia, a disorder of the heart rate when the heart beats too quickly,” he said.
