KASARAGOD: It was meant to be a short road trip to Mangaluru and an overnight stay for four close friends. But after four days, one of them, Suryajith (19), returned home in a coffin.
His family is not finding closure after the sudden death mostly because the friends told lies after lies -- initially to get away from their homes and then "to prevent the families from panicking" when Suryajith fell ill.
Suryajith's parents Rameshan and Shobha of Molothumgal in Badadka now suspect the friends lied to cover up something sinister that happened in Mangaluru. They have written to Union home minister Amit Shah, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Mangaluru police commissioner N Shashi Kumar, and Kasaragod collector Bhandari Swagat Ranveerchand and to Kasaragod police, Kerala Women's Commission, the Congress, and the BJP seeking justice for their son.
In her petition, Shobha says she does not have the financial resources to get to the bottom of what happened in Mangaluru and is seeking a thorough investigation into the matter. The New Indian Express spoke to the parents and the friends to piece together what had happened.
On September 1, Rahul (24), who works in Dubai and was home for vacation, decided to go to his college in Mangaluru to get his degree certificate.
Rahul was joined by his friends Swaroop (24) and Mithun Nair (20), a BBA student in Mangaluru, and Suryajith (19), who was preparing for his supplementary exams after he flunked two subjects in Class 12. All of them are friends, neighbours, and members of the same youth club at Bedadka.
Around 2 pm, the four friends left Bedadka on two motorcycles. But Mithun lied to his parents that he and Suryajith were going on a train because his father had prohibited him from taking his motorcycle to Mangaluru.
On reaching Mangaluru, they stayed in the house of their friend Shakil, who works as a nurse in a private clinic. They cooked chicken and settled down for an evening party. Around 8 pm, Suryajith spoke to his mother on the phone.
But he complained to his friends that he was having body pain and feeling shivers. "We thought it was because of the ride in the rain. We all had a little body ache," said Swaroop. They partied and went to sleep.
The next day, Suryajith spoke to his mother again on the phone. "That was the last time she spoke to him," said his father Rameshan.
The friends were supposed to return on September 2 but in the morning, Suryajith's fever shot up and he started shivering, said Swaroop and Mithun. "Shakil called his clinic and the doctor asked us to give him glucose water," said Swaroop.
They gave him glucose water and also got him a chicken biryani for lunch. "We thought biryani would give him some strength. But he threw up the food," he said.
That's when they realised that Suryajith should be taken to a hospital. The first stop was at Shakil's clinic. "There he was not allowing the nurses to administer the injection. His arms were shivering violently," said Swaroop.
The doctor there advised him to be shifted to a private hospital. Rahul was with Suryajith and Swaroop and Mithun were waiting outside. "His mother was calling us relentlessly and we did not know what to say," said Swaroop.
The mother said Suryajith's phone was switched off after the morning conversation. "Then when I called, the friends said they were out shopping and Suryajith was alone in the room. Later, they said they were in the room and he went out to buy food," Shobha said.
Swaroop said they were lying because they thought it was just fever and two bottles of intravenous drips would get him back on his feet. "We did not want to panic the family," he said.
But soon, the private hospital recommended that he be shifted to Father Muller Medical College in the city. "In the first hospital, the doctors found there was blood clotting in the brain and gave an injection but the doctors at Father Muller diagnosed it as bleeding and not clotting," said Swaroop. "We think the wrong injection must have caused the damage," he said.
The doctors at Father Muller also said Suryajith's platelet counts were dangerously low, said Swaroop.
That's when the friends first contacted his parents. It was past 10 pm on September 2. Rameshan and Shobha said they were told that Suryajith was admitted to the hospital because he had dengue fever.
The friends said they did not mention dengue fever because they did not know what was the problem. "The family might have guessed it was dengue fever because we told them that the platelet count was low," Swaroop said.
Rameshan said he got a call from the hospital around midnight seeking permission to shift Suryajith to the ventilator from the ICU. That's when the family decided to go to Mangaluru. They reached the hospital around 3 am after which Suryajith was shifted to the ventilator. The next day he died.
People's representatives in Bedadka and parents of Swaroop and Mithun said a postmortem should be conducted. "But I was not in a mental state to allow my son to be cut open and so I did not give permission for a postmortem," said Rameshan. But now, he felt he made a mistake.
At Father Muller hospital, Rameshan said the friends gave Suryajith's address as somewhere in Ernakulam. "Also, they said they spent around Rs 37,000 in the private hospital where they took him first. But when we checked with the hospital, we found that they had spent only around Rs 2,000," he said.
Suryajith wore Bermuda shorts under his trousers and T-shirt under his shirt. "We did not get the shorts and T-shirt back. The shirt and the trousers were returned to us after a few days and they were washed and pressed," Rameshan said.
Mithun said the first hospital said the rent would be Rs 37,000 if an ICU bed was taken. "It must have been a communication error because we were all tense," he said. The Ernakulam address was given by Shakil to keep the family out of it, he said.
The shorts and T-shirt were discarded after he vomited."Some people in our village are saying he fell off the motorcycle. Some are saying he suffered a head injury. But there were no external injuries on the body. Else, the doctors would have mentioned them," said Swaroop. "We lied to keep the family away from tension but now our lies are haunting us," he said.