Aruna Shanbaug : Indian Nurse Dies After 42 Years in a Coma Following Rape

Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse who lived in a vegetative state for the past 42 years after being brutally sexually assaulted at the KEM Hospital here and became the face of the debate on euthanasia in India, died today.

Aruna Shanbaug was subjected to a shocking and brutal attack while she was working at Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital in India in 1973.

Just aged 24 at the time, Miss Shanbaug was changing clothes when Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, a ward attendant attacked the young nurse.

The beast used a dog chain to throttle his victim which cut off blood to her brain which resulted in severe damage that left her in a vegetative state.

Although caught, Walmiki was only caged for seven years for assault and robbery, while his victim was forced to endure spending the rest of her life in a paralysed state in hospital.

She was kept alive by being fed through her nose, but her health declined last week after she developed pneumonia.

A hospital spokesman said: “Ms Shanbaug died at 08:30am on Monday. She was admitted to the intensive care unit and put on ventilator support.”

Her case had become a major campaign for euthanasia in India and her friend, journalist Pinki Virani who wrote a book about her plight, told the BBC her pal was now free.

She said: “My broken, battered baby bird finally flew away. And she gave India a passive euthanasia law before doing so.”

Agencies/Canadajournal