Sruti Gupta, the 15-year-old intermediate student from Hyderabad who had been battling for life after a fire at her home last Monday, died at the Gandhi Hospital on Saturday morning.
Her grandparents, who had raised her since she was a toddler, had died of smoke inhalation in the fire that engulfed their home in Yakutpura area. Fire and police personnel found Sruti, who was doing intermediate first year and was a school topper, unconscious in her room on the first floor.
Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjed Ullah Khan, who helped Sruti’s family pay the medical expenses through crowdfunding, said that the girl’s health deteriorated in the ICU.
“Late Friday night, she became unresponsive and was shifted to Gandhi Hospital, where she breathed her last in the morning. The tragedy is no one helped this brilliant girl in spite of so many appeals… The crowdfunding helped raise about Rs 1 lakh only, which went to pay for medicines, while her family paid Rs 2 lakh for the treatment,” Khan said.
“In some cases we are able to raise a minimum of Rs 5 lakh but in Sruti’s case we struggled to raise Rs 2 lakh. Most of the donations were of Rs 100,” he said.
An official from Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s office said the CM had taken note of Sruti’s condition on Friday and had directed officials to ensure the best treatment for the teenager.
Sruti’s uncle Ganesh Lal said they ran out of money to pay the hospital bills. “Her condition worsened and we shifted her to Gandhi Hospital. She fought for her life and gave up,” he said.
Sruti lost her mother when she was a child and her father migrated to South Africa, leaving her with her grandparents. On Monday night, a fire spread in the kitchen of their one-storey house and firecrackers the family had bought for Diwali also caught fire. Sruti’s grandparents Mohal Lal Gupta, 58, and his wife Usha Gupta, 55, died of smoke inhalation while she was taken to Yashoda Hospital.
