Tourist from Kolkata dies during trip

EOI, DARJEELING, OCT 23, 2024 : Sixty-five-year-old Ashoke Sadhukhan, a tourist from Kolkata, died on Tuesday while touring the tourist spot Lamahatta in Darjeeling. Sadhukhan, who is from Hatibagan in Kolkata, was a retired bank employee and had come to visit Darjeeling with two daughters, a son-in-law, and brothers.

“He had come with his family from Kolkata on October 20 for a tour of Darjeeling and had been staying at a hotel. They were to return as their train tickets were booked for the evening. Yesterday, they had gone on a sightseeing trip to different places around Darjeeling, including Lamahatta, where he fell sick,” said Rajesh Chauhan, Deputy Chairman, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

“After we received information about the incident, our health team from Takdah Primary Health Centre reached Lamahatta, and with the help of others, he was brought to the Darjeeling District Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The post-mortem was conducted today morning,” he said. The GTA is helping the family members of the deceased to ferry the body to Siliguri, after which the district administration has made arrangements to send the body to Kolkata.

His son-in-law Subrato from Howrah said, “We had come to Darjeeling to visit different tourist attractions of the region, and yesterday we had gone to Lamahatta. We all went uphill on foot after coming out of the vehicle. My father-in-law had already started to go downhill when we were just climbing up, and I told him to walk carefully. It was during this time that he fell down and became senseless.”

“We gave him water after that as he was alive then, but in the two hours it took for us to reach the hospital, the doctor declared him dead,” he added.