A Kerala High Court lawyer and public activist Kulathur Jaisingh has written to the Chief Secretary demanding that the government announce compensation in connection with the incident at Mattathur, Thrissur, where a child who was sleeping inside the home had died following snakebite.
Two children were bitten by the snake which was later found inside the house. While one child died, the other is undergoing treatment.
Mr. Jaisingh in his letter said that the incident occurred due to the failure of the local self-government bodies in taking necessary measures to keep the boundary areas of forest regions where people reside, clean and safe.
2019 incident
In the backdrop of a 2019 incident wherein a girl had died of snakebite while inside a classroom at a school in Sulthan Bathery, Wayanad, Mr. Jaisingh had approached the High Court last year, highlighting the absence of adequate medical care for child snakebite victims, deficiencies in school infrastructure, and the lack of any coordinated multi-department policy to address the growing incidence of snakebites in Kerala.
