Pti

Cuttack: The health condition of freedom fighter Laxmi Indira Panda's grandson, Babuli Panda, who is undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College Hospital here was normal today, hospital sources said.

"The patient s general condition is normal and his conscious level has improved. He is able to speak now", said the Medical College principal and medicine professor Siddharth Das. He also added that after the dialysis on Friday, the patient s kidney is functioning normally and if required he may undergo the dialysis process again.

Babuli was rescued in a critical condition from Mancheswar in Bhubaneswar on Thursday afternoon.

The slug fest between ruling BJD and opposition BJP continued over the issue. While a team of BJP workers led by its senior leader Samir Dey was denied permission by the police to meet Babuli in the Hospital, local BJD legislator Debashis Samantray termed the police action "appropriate" and once again blamed the BJP for the woes of freedom fighter s family.

Local Mangalabag police station, inspector Arun Kumar Swain said that due to medical exigencies, there has been a restriction on the visitors to meet Babuli Panda, who is now in ICU. He said except the treating doctors, paramedics and his family members, no one is allowed to meet him in the hospital now.

The grandson of INA veteran Laxmi Indira Panda of Koraput district, had mysteriously disappeared after he, along with his parents were felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bhubaneswar on April 16.

Babuli and his parents got separated at Bhubaneswar railway station. While Babuli s mother Sujata boarded a wrong train and was later rescued from Balasore, his father Surendra returned home alone as Babuli mysteriously disappeared from the station.

The ruling BJD alleged that the BJP has put the family into trouble in the name felicitation.

Even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was quick to order the Sate DGP to trace the missing kin of the freedom fighter, Odisha BJP alleged that a former minister and a present minister of the BJD government had, in fact kidnapped Babuli and had kept him in confinement with an aim to make light of the prime minister s gesture, to felicitate family members of at least 16 freedom fighters of the state.

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