[Mumbai] Nurse Aruna Shanbaug,Victim Of Sexually Assaulted42 Years Ago,Dies Aruna Shanbaug[66]Former Nurse of KEM Hospital who was in a coma for 42 years after a sexual assault by a wardboy ,was declared dead This morning.
Aruna Shanbaug, was brutally sexually assaulted by a ward boy at the facility 42 years ago and had been lying in a vegetative state ever since, passed away today.
The 66-year-old was battling a serious bout of pneumonia and was on ventilator support, King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital sources said.
She was in the medical ICU of the hospital located in Parel area of Mumbai.
Shanbaug was rushed out of the tiny room attached to ward number 4 that had been her home for four decades on Tuesday, after nurses attending to her saw she had difficulty in breathing. She was taken to the medical ICU and started on antibiotics.
On November 27, 1973, while working as a junior nurse at KEM Hospital, she was sexually assaulted by a ward boy, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki. He had also strangled her with a dog chain, cutting off oxygen supply to her brain.
On 24 January 2011, after she had been in this state for 38 years, the Supreme Court responded to the plea for euthanasia filed by Aruna’s friend, journalist Pinki Virani, by setting up a medical panel to examine her.
The court turned down the mercy killing petition on March 7, 2011.