Fresh FIR in Gujarat HIV-infected children case

Ahmedabad: The CBI on Tuesday registered a fresh FIR in a case of 23 Thalassemia-affected children allegedly contracting HIV infection during blood transfusion at Junagad civil hospital last year, a senior officer said.

"We have registered an FIR in the case today at Gandhinagar and after modifying original complaint we have added a charge under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC," said Superintendent of Police, CBI (Gujarat), Deepak Damor.

23 children, who were suffering from thalassemia, were found to be HIV positive after they had blood transfusion in the civil hospital in September 2011. Two of them later died.

"As per the directives of the HC, we have registered a new FIR after taking over the investigation and tomorrow we will be submitting it into the special CBI court in Ahmedabad," he said.

Acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala of Gujarat High Court had on June 27 ordered the central agency to take over the investigations immediately following a PIL filed by an advocate seeking the CBI probe.

Advertisement

"Present case is an exceptional one in history (of the country), 23 innocent children became HIV positive allegedly because of the negligence of the civil hospital authorities", the bench had observed while handing over the investigations to CBI.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the probe by the state police, the division bench had said that,"the way state agency has conducted its investigation, we are compelled to exercise our power to direct the investigation to CBI for the credibility of the probe".
 

Advertisement