Lucknow, Aug 11 While parents routinely pray for their children's long life and prosperity, a couple in Uttar Pradesh has written to President Pratibha Patil pleading for the mercy killing of their four physically-challenged sons. Jeet Narayan and his wife Prabhavati, residing in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh, pleaded for mercy killing for their sons, aged 10-16 years, as they are stricken with muscular dystrophy.
"My sons are in utter discomfort... I cannot see their helplessness any more. So, I have written to the president that my sons be killed through euthanasia," Narayan said. "My sons cannot even stand on their feet. They are unable to move their body parts below the neck... I see their distress everyday. Now when doctors too have lost hope, I want they should die... Death would be the ultimate solution for all their sufferings," added Narayan, a farmer in Bashi village of Mirzapur, some 300 km from Lucknow.
In order to meet the medical treatment expenses of his sons, Narayan said he sold all his valuables. "Our financial resources have been exhausted completely. I even sold the parental land. Moreover, I owe nearly Rs.2 lakh to moneylenders," he said. Prabhavati said muscular dystrophy afflicted her four sons when they were five years old. She said all her sons - Durgesh, 16, Sarvesh, 14, Brijesh, 11, and Suresh, 10 - were affected by the disorder at that age.
"They were like normal children until they completed the five years." The couple now fear their four-year-old daughter would become disabled when she attains the age of five. "Till now, our daughter is doing fine... but we are quite worried about her. She might meet the same fate like her brothers after a year or so," said Prabhavati.
