Girish, police chief for a day, dies at 11

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 3

Girish Sharma, ‘Jaipur Police Commissioner for a day’, lost the battle for life last night. Allegedly discharged by a prestigious hospital after his parents failed to collect funds for a dialysis kit, the 11-year-old breathed his last in the ambulance on his way back home in Sirsa. 

Girish aspired to be a police officer. An NGO, “Make a Wish Foundation”, helped him realise this dream when at a function in Jaipur on April 30 last year, he ‘took over’ as Commissioner of Police for a day. He was then undergoing treatment at Sawai Man Singh Hospital.

Girish’s father Jagdish Sharma, a vendor, recalled: “In January 2015, Girish complained of a severe headache. Upon checkup, doctors in Sirsa told us that his blood pressure was dangerously high and that his kidneys had stopped functioning. We took Girish to a hospital in Jaipur, where we were told that kidney transplant was the only option. But it was beyond us to pay Rs 13 lakh.

“We had lost all hope till former minister Gopal Kanda offered to bear the cost. My wife donated a kidney and the surgery was performed at Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon on October 21. However, the surgery did not go well and Girish had to be taken to hospital time and again, leading to an expenditure of Rs 21 lakh.”

A spirited child, it was Girish’s ambition to don the khaki. “I will be a police commissioner and take on the criminals,” he would tell those who cared to ask. But the kidney ailment confined him to bed. It was at this juncture when Girish was undergoing treatment in Jaipur that the NGO approached his parents and the Jaipur Police Commissioner agreed to oblige.