Date:16/05/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/05/16/stories/2005051606041200.htm

Other States - Assam

41 donate body, eyes in Assam

Sushanta Talukdar

The Ellora Vigyan Mancha has launched a movement to spread scientific temper among people and to fight all forms of superstition and blind belief

Women signing their `last will and testament' to donate their body after their death at the Ellora Vigyan Mancha in Guwahati on Sunday. — Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

GUWAHATI: Two years after CPI(M) activist Ellora Roychoudhury became the first woman from the northeast to donate her body, organ donation has assumed the form of a movement in Assam.

On Saturday, 42 persons, including 14 women, pledged their bodies and eyes after a campaign by the Ellora Vigyan Mancha, a voluntary organisation formed in May last in the memory of Ellora Roychoudhury. Of this, 41 bodies will be donated to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital and the eyes to the Sri Sankardeva Nethralaya. The remaining body and eyes will be given to the Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, and the Jeuti Eye Bank, Sivasagar.

The donors affixed their signatures to their "last will" in the presence of the Senior Sub-Register, Kamrup, Gautam Kumar Sarma, at a brief function presided over by M.M. Deka, principal, Guwahati Medical College Hospital. The function was held as part of the two-day first general session of the voluntary organisation.

Prominent among the donors were the artist, Jnaendra Barkakati, Assam unit AIDWA president Madhuri Devi and All-Assam Nurses' Association president Geeta Rani Oza.

On January 16, 23 persons, including the historian, Amlendu Guha, had pledged their body and eyes after death.

"The Ellora Vigyan Mancha, since its inception, has launched a movement to spread scientific temper amongst the people and to fight against all forms of superstition, obscurantism and blind belief. In response to our campaign and movements, quite a good number of people have already pledged their eyes and bodies for transplantation or for enrichment of medical science and research," said Isfaqur Rahman, husband of the late Ellora Roychoudhury and convenor of the Mancha.